


Shades of Rue (and the Too Orthodox Tux of Solemn Black)

by PatriaRoux



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Feels, Explicit Language, F/M, For 21 and up, Inspired by Art
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-07
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-01-10 04:03:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 56,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12290820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PatriaRoux/pseuds/PatriaRoux
Summary: “I want you to paint me like one of your German girls, Jaqen.”Modern AU--I own nothing.





	1. London

**Author's Note:**

> Note: There are some characters and references in here that you may find in Songs of the Faceless. Hope you'll like this one.

 

"I want you to paint me like one of your German girls, Jaqen."

It might have been the deception of sunset—'fictitious gold', as described by the tongue of artists. But the lustful flicker in his eyes that was gone in less than a clock's tick, in contrast with the melancholy that danced in his face persuaded Arya otherwise.  _What lies in the mind of a fine work of art?_ She asked herself, and she did not mean the abstracts and the figures drawn to life by pastel and ink and oil.

She meant  _him_.

Arya Stark would very much like to read Jaqen H'ghar's thoughts.

The man stared at the cigarette in between his shade-stained fingers, watched as the smoke swirled from the tip. He placed the cigarette in between his lips and raked her form with one vague stare. Arya felt the hairs of her arms rise as he took his time studying every part of her from across the room—her outlines, angles, shapes, hues, undertones, subtleties…

Yes,  _every_  part. Eyes, lips, neck, breasts, sex…

As if she was an object, a material inspiration.

An already breathing painting.

A whiff of the smoke's crisp scent filled the studio as Jaqen blew it in the air, like hell's hot kiss, meshing with the ginger and cloves, with his manly spice and the Turkish coffee.

She felt like burning.

And she might have been aflame at that instant, as warmth coursed through her body and she felt her cheeks redden at his gaze, his eyes still roaming freely across her wholeness.

She inhaled deeply. And what came out when she exhaled was not wind, but a scandalous whimper.

His lip tipped up as his eyes settled on her face. He had heard that helpless sound from her.

Jaqen stood from the ebony settee. Tangerine rays hit his red and white of hair.

"Why?" he asked, his eyes still locked upon her face.

Arya held her chin up and met that magnetic stare of his.

"I want to be immortal."

He chuckled, and she felt like thawing on the spot, like gouache colors in steamy waters.

Jaqen crossed the distance between them in painstaking slowness. He reached her, dipped his head and smelled the scent of her neck, his fingers fiddled with her robe of thin silk.

"Immortal?" he purred, then laughed softly. Arya almost moaned at the feel of his hot breath. "Don't you know that dying is one of art's greatest forms? Dying—death is…what did your beloved Aegon the Sixth say again? Ah, yes…" his forefinger moved to trace the line between her breasts, as he spoke against her neck. "Death is poetry's most favorite subject."

 _It's not about not dying,_ Arya heard her heart whisper.

_It's about…_

_Being with you forever._

"I don't have time for Aegon's the Sixth's poetry, or for your fancy words. I could pay."

A soft growl came out of him—a predatory one.

Arya shuddered.

"Can you afford it—a man's price?" Jaqen asked.

"Name it."

She felt Jaqen's tongue against the flesh of her shoulder. Then, there was the feel of his teeth grazing her skin gently.

_Naughty. Wet._

Jaqen purred.

"You."

* * *

 

It all started when Aegon had told her that he couldn't make it to the opening at the White Cube.

"…this meeting at P&D, I can't reschedule. Union Bank partners will be there since the whole talk's going to be about acquisitions. I don't like to bore you with the details, just that…it's pretty big," he said, his tone half-apologetic, half-begging. With the usual elegance of one born in the  _haut monde_ , Aegon reached for Arya's hand from across the breakfast table and leaned closer, tried to catch her eye that was then occupied with the editorial section of the daily, of which she is editor. "I know you hate Postmodern, babe, but this is only for one afternoon—"

"I  _don't_  hate Postmodern," Arya cut him without taking her eyes off of the print. She took a sip of her black brew before throwing him a glance. "I hate art— _en masse_."

Aegon grinned, still refined. "That's a little harsh. I happen to love it."

Arya set the paper down and looked at him. "Yeah, right. You don't have to stay friends with your college buddy forever, babe. I'm sure he—what's his name?—would get it that we're all grown-ups now and don't have to go crazy over colored pencil sketches anymore."

"His name is Jaqen, and he does lyrical abstractions. Well, mostly. He knows you're coming, so be nice."

Arya rolled her eyes and went back to the paper. "You're always forcing me to proxy you in your functions, I'm starting to hate the arrangement we have. And I'm guessing I have to buy you some crappy art, too?"

He laughed this time. "Yeah. Tell him I'll wire the cash after a week. Come on, this might be good for the paper."

"You're forgetting something—I don't do soft articles. I boss people around into writing them." She sighed in resignation. "Fine. What do you want? The painting with the rainbows and smiles or the one with the tree?"

Aegon chuckled again as he stood and embraced her from behind. He kissed her cheek and settled his chin on her shoulder. Oh, how he loved her, the many faces she wears—the funny and clever, the collected, the indifferent, the sensational. Arya Stark was anything but romantic, yet there was something about her, something Aegon couldn't name that drew him in totally and helplessly. She doesn't need him, yet here she is in  _their_  lovely nest, after she agreed to move in with him.  _'If moving in means taking hot showers with you all I want, then fine,'_  she had told him when he brought the subject up. She still smelled of morning sex, clean sheets, Aegon's scent of vanilla, and he felt himself grow hard as he fondled the tips of her bosoms beneath the oversized shirt she was wearing— _his_  shirt. "You'll swallow your own sassy words once you see his work. He's one of the good ones."

"Too bad you won't be there to…see it," she said, gasping the last of the words out. She tossed the paper on the table and threw her head back, relishing her lover's touch. She guided his hands as he stroked her bosoms.

"I know, and I'm sorry for putting you into this," he purred, nipping the sensitive skin of her neck close to the ear. Aegon slid his other hand inside Arya's panties and caressed her there.  _So wet_ , he thought, as he pushed a finger in and out of her _._  Her taut walls tightened even more in response to him, and he felt it,  _loved_  it like mad. He laughed softly as he sensed her tense up and groan with satisfaction, whispered. "I'll make it up to you, I promise. We'll go sailing this weekend."

"Now…" Arya exhaled, her body stirred, electrified by Aegon's usual sexy games. "Make it up to me now."

She stood and whirled back, caught his nape and wolfed down his lips, hooking one leg around his waist and grinding her hips against his. One naughty hand of his traveled inside her shirt, and his fingers toyed with her crystal-hard nipples as he forced his tongue inside her mouth.

"Hot damn, Aegon…" she murmured against his lips. Arya leaped and wrapped both legs around Aegon's waist, her wet woman's parts searching for his hardened member. She danced north and south of him as she carried on swallowing the lush of his mouth. "Want you…please…"

Aegon couldn't just let  _his_  woman dictate the terms.

Yet, he settled her on the table as if he couldn't resist following her orders, chuckled when she pulled his PJs down and gripped his firm sex. "Hey…hey…slow down, beautiful," Aegon whispered, the  _savoir faire_  still there. "I don't have to be in the Wharf for another three hours, we have the whole morning…" he lifted her shirt— _his_  shirt that was on her, rather—and ran his tongue across her bosoms. A filthy groan came out of her. She gripped tightly his ash-blonde hair, forced his mouth to cover a larger part of her breasts.

Aegon gently pulled her lacy panties off. Arya moved with a lurch as she felt his fingers rubbing lazy circles around her now drenched core.

Black coffee spilled on the paper. Their early morning rodeo knocked a chair over the floor, sending the vase at the side falling with a crash—peach carnations and all.

"Get me any painting of his. Surprise me," Aegon growled as he pushed himself inside her.

"Okay…" Arya replied, moving against him in sensual pushes and pulls. "I'll get you the one with the puppies."

* * *

 

_Lyrical abstraction, my ass._

A disorienting, messy splash of random colors—that's what she saw.

"Excuse me," a stern-faced, French-accented man with round specs called to her. "You're impeding the flow."

Arya turned to the man and raised her brows in confusion. "Uh, sorry…what again?"

The man exhaled impatiently. "You've been gawking at this particular  _informel_  for about five minutes now." He motioned to the queue of around six to seven people behind him. "If you're done surveying the frames, you may move to have a look at the other works."

The  _frames_? How did he even know that she was just interested in the frames?

She moved aside, fighting the urge to roll her eyes. "This is total bullshit," she muttered under her breath as she walked away, earning herself some horrified glances from two women standing by the wine area. She heard their stilettos clack as she passed them by.

Aegon had made her wear one damned piece of satin. And heels. And jewelry.

He even made her tie her hair in a fancy ponytail.

_Oh, that ash-blonde's definitely going to pay once I get home. And big time._

Arya took a small glass of Viognier and sauntered to the less-crowded area of the gallery. She took a quick sip of her sparkling and smacked her lips, erasing the blush of deep red on purpose. She struggled as she walked, careful not to trip and fall on her face, cursing the too feminine pumps on her damned feet. Her eyes traveled across one solitary work.

_Blue all over, a splotch of red, some yellows here and there...are those feathers? Clouds?_

_Some squiggly lines and sloppy doodles…_

_Third grader's work._

And she heard herself laugh.

"Seems like you found something in that art that wasn't supposed to be there."

She shook her head, still laughing. "Just look at the cost of this blotchy canvas! Does a fully-furnished flat come with that or what? A motorbike, maybe?" She took another sip and scoffed, gesturing at the painting with her unmanicured fingers. "I know I'm not supposed to touch any work, but I don't see why I shouldn't. It's already messy."

A soft chuckle. "You're right. It's messy. The whole work is a complex emotion—a sad one."

"Which emotion?"

"Rue."

"Then, the artist should have used black and white, he could have saved some money," she remarked. "That way, this painting wouldn't have been this expensive."

"Rue has different shades, different faces. The problem is, we choose to see only the black and the white in it."

She turned to the man.

He was wearing a sleek tux of Washington black—darker than dark. His hair of red and white was neatly tucked in a man bun.

_Hot._

_So…male._

And he was so tall that she had to tilt her head up to fully look at him.  _I might need to stand on my toes just to eat this guy's face._ He might be one of the paintings, too, might have escaped from the gallery-wrapped canvases and clothed his perfect, nude self to talk some art-sense into her. His built was almost…sculpted, like the high and mighty, marble David in Florence.

Only that, she could bet on her own sweet life on it, this man was better equipped than David. Oh, so much better.

Her eyes cruised to where his bulge was supposed to be in his trousers.

_And what would the color be of his man-hairs down there?_

And when she looked at him,  _really_  looked, she saw his eyes. They were…

 _Captivating,_ she thought.

_And the loneliest I have ever seen._

You know when they say that there are defining moments that would make you question everything that you are?

For Arya Stark, this is that moment.

She couldn't quite say why, but she wanted to grab this man's hand and take him to her old flat by the docks of St. George, where the firefly-like city lights were visible by the rooftop. Oh, she loved that place. Loved it like crazy. She wanted to laugh with him over fried chicken and beer while they both sat on her cot of throw pillows and thick comforters, with Rascal Flatts playing in the background, just under the glittering rooftop bulbs she had set up a month before Aegon had asked her to move in with him in his lavish living quarters.

She wanted to see if that cryptic, well-rehearsed smile of this man could reach his very lonely eyes.

She blinked, then turned her attention back to the work. Arya felt her skin crawl. Her toes curled.

_Damn._

"Are you…" she stammered. "Like, interested in buying the art or something? It's…well, a terrible investment but it's your money, so…"

He chuckled, his white set of pearls flashing for a moment there. "I'm the artist."

Arya heard herself swallow. How could a damned swallow be that audible?

"Oh, no," she said after gathering herself and finding her voice. "You're Jaqen."

"Yes."

"I'm—"

"Aegon's doll."

Her blood boiled at the insult. With narrowed eyes, she looked at him, keeping herself on the leash though she's getting overly hot under the collar. "Aegon's… _doll_?" she asked him, emphasis on the last word.

Jaqen just shrugged his shoulders and let his stare roam from Arya's crown to her sole. "He likes collecting. He also likes telling them how to dress up, where to go, who to talk to." A sigh from him—one that caressed her naked spine like sharp yet gentle talons. She felt herself tremble slightly. "Don't worry. I think he has decided that you're for keeps. He never shuts up about you."

Arya smiled sarcastically. "Oh, yeah? And is Aegon aware of how much of an asshole his friend is?"

He only threw her a charming smile back.

For moments they just stood there, neither one breathing a word.

He shattered the silence.

"You're a lovely thing."

Did she almost giggle at the thrill brought by that stupid remark? She forced herself to show him nothing but her icy, untouchable façade. "And aren't you so smooth?"

"I'm not trying to be smooth," he purred, his intense gaze scouring her form again, lingering shamelessly on her partly exposed bosoms, her hips. "I see something, and I call it for what it is."

She folded her arms across her chest—a defense mechanism. Her tone was thick, irked. "And what am I?"

"An object," he replied quietly, raising a forefinger and tracing her outlines in the air, as if to create a whole sketch of her. He licked his lips, smirked. "A material inspiration for a possible art."

She scoffed. "And I suppose I'll be reduced to mere sloppy blotches of pink for the body and brown for the eyes and the hair, won't I? Like these…lyrical abstractions of yours that only  _you_  can understand."

"Nope," Jaqen replied. He tilted his head to assess her, then rubbed his thumb across his lower lip, hissed as he sucked in air. Arya cursed again.  _This man!_ "Not pink for the body—I'll say...very pale ochre mixed with light sienna. Not brown, either—dark olive for your eyes and heavy russet for your hair. And hell no, not sloppy blotches, Arya Stark," he chuckled, then bit his lower lip. "I can actually sketch full, perfect breasts to the last detail."

Arya felt her own breasts grow beneath her clothing. She wanted to rush back to Aegon's penthouse for her fear of Jaqen noticing the fact that she was without any bra.

Why, of course the bastard would know. His eyes were already on her erect nipples.

_Fuck satin gowns._

"Is it cold in here?" he asked with a tone amused, his gaze cruising from her breasts to her face. He was still smirking. "Gowns—they take some getting used to, I suppose."

Arya straightened and threw her chest out. She was not to be bullied into thinking that she needed to wear anything beneath the gown when it would just make her utterly uncomfortable. Let him notice her firm nipples—the hell she cared. Let him feast on them. Let him decide if he wants to get an eyeful of them or maybe have a taste or…

She slapped herself inwardly.  _Get your shit together, Arya!_

"I need to bring home one doodle," Arya smirked back, holding her chin high. "Aegon insisted, he said he'll wire the cash next week. Give me the cheapest of the lot. Would appreciate it so much if you'd be quick about it since I really need to go. I've  _actual_  important matters to attend to, I'm afraid."

Jaqen smiled. "You're not even going to look at the other works and decide which one Aegon might like?"

Arya rolled her eyes and waved her hand in dismissal. She didn't bother hiding the boredom. "Seen one, seen them all."

His very amused smile didn't fade. He motioned for an assistant to have a painting wrapped for a buyer. "Shades of Rue," he purred, never once taking his eyes off her face. "I'll let you take this one. You might discover a thing or two about it."

"What?!" she exclaimed. "This art? But it costs a freaking fortune!"

He started to walk away. "I'm sure it's just a drop in the bucket for Aegon. Not to mention, that's the cheapest shit in this place." Jaqen paused and looked back over his shoulder. "Oh, painting's free, by the way. Consider it an engagement gift."

Jaqen winked at her and sauntered off.

* * *

 

_Two weeks._

Two weeks since he had last seen that woman.

Still, he couldn't paint.

Jaqen stared at the blank canvas, waved the rigger brush in the air, testing, visualizing. Three words came out of his mouth in faint whispers. Over and over.

_Confusion of styles. Confusion of styles._

He set the brush down to light a cigarette, inhaled deeply and allowed the sharp whiff and texture in, savoring it. It was addicting…like that woman. He blew out the smoke on the canvas, letting the residue settle a little on the threads of immaculate white, tainting it…the same way he wanted to taint that woman for seven-plus-seven lazy days…run his paintbrush all over her soft, naked body…perform his usual basecoats and blending and strokeworks…tickle her all over with the filberts…then fuck the hell out of he—

He stood abruptly, knocking over the palette containing his Utrecht oils. The colors spilled on the studio's floor.

 _Great,_ he shook his head.  _Just great._

Jaqen flexed his arms upwards and walked to the balcony. He leaned against the handrail and surveyed the busy city below. It was early, yet he couldn't find any inspiration.

A long break. Maybe he just needed one.

For a while there, Jaqen had almost considered giving Petyr a ring to have the man send one of the girls to his place. Two things and these, Petyr knew damned well—Jaqen only fucks supermodels and he pays like a Forbes guy.

He was desperately trying to get over it—the paid casual sex, the flings. Though being seen with different ostentatious, catwalk women in every gallery opening looks nice on the art mags, the whole set-up is not…quite healthy for him.

Jaqen needed something more. Something deeper.

He shouldn't be thinking about paying for sex. Not again.

Yet now, he's willing to do anything… _anything_ , just so he could erase her lovely face from his thoughts.

_Aegon's doll._

Shit.

He wanted Aegon's doll.

One damned meeting and he's gone crazy-boy over her.

Jaqen ran his hands through his wavy locks and exhaled sharply, shutting his eyes tight.

"Arya," he whispered. Damn, her name feels good in his tongue, his mouth.

He could almost taste her.

Those full, round breasts, those curves. The gem beneath what he was guessing were silk panties.

Jaqen walked back to the studio and sank on the couch. Instinctively, his paint-stained left hand reached for his hard sex beneath his soft trousers. He threw his head back, shut his eyes as he began stroking himself, and clicked his tongue in mild surprise upon realizing how very wet he already was.

Mere thoughts of that woman, and this. Would he come in floods and streams once he has pierced through her virgin zones, once he's fully inside those tight, delicious walls of hers?

_Arya…_

His breathing changed erratically. He felt the whole room close in on him, the wind getting warmer and thicker— _sexy_ , his lustful energies slowly reaching the summit. All over him were pleasures and thrills that caused his shudders and quiet groans. Jaqen carried on flirting with memories of her in that gallery—she had seduced him without her knowing it, as if she was the only piece of art that mattered in the midst of that sea of ingenuity he had created; and the rawness of that encounter, that connection with her that clicked into place, the sudden obsessive longing for her, made him want to drag her from Aegon's penthouse and chain her in his own suite, fuck her till she loses her voice…

_Arya..._

Self-induced orgasms are not myths. Jaqen is on the verge of one right now.

And he saw those colors bursting from cool to warm, light to dark, unifying within his erotic, artistic-visual paths, then exploding violently in all directions.

His eyes flew open upon that release.

_Hah…_

Then, came the guilt afterwards.

He cursed himself.

_Not your buddy's girlfriend, man. Come on._

He wiped his frothy palms across his trousers and picked up his phone. He blew air from his mouth and cursed himself again.

This has got to stop.

Petyr answered from the other line.

"Hey Pete, it's me," Jaqen said. "Listen, could you just check if Bellegere's free tonight? Yeah, then send her over to my suite…"

* * *

 

"I've got a number of articles pending approval," Arya complained. "We've just gone sailing last week. Can I be excused from joining the barbecue, for once?"

"Come on, babe. People will expect you there," Aegon replied.

"Correction—people will expect  _you_  to come with a woman in tow."

He traced circles on her bare legs with a forefinger. They were both stretched out on the chaise, Aegon's head on Arya's lap, and the latter poring over her usual stack of printouts. Her eyes chanced upon him, his stares more intense than the usual, and Arya realized that she had been chewing on the tip of her pen—'nibbling on the phallus' yet  _again_ , in Aegon's words of tease. "Stop!" She laughed and tugged at his flaxen hair. "You, Targaryen pervert!"

He chuckled, planted gentle kisses on the soft of her leg. "It's not your usual barbecue, I promise. It's a yacht spree and you'll love it. The guys are literally dying to meet you and I have to convince them that you're not someone I just made up."

Arya snorted.

This man has billions in multiple Swiss bank accounts and is practically a shareholder at the Suisse; still, he has this imperative need to prove to his pals that he's got a real, live girlfriend.

That he's finally going to…settle?

_He likes collecting._

She almost wanted to ask him if the artist is going to be there.

Arya clenched her jaw as she forced away a hundred confusing thoughts from her head.

Truth was, she had begged Aegon to take her on the carpeted floor after her encounter with the artist. Oh yes, she had made him do  _things_ —rough, and wild, and filthy. She ordered him to  _never_  stop talking while he rammed himself against her, and Arya had touched him all over, had talked dirty to him, had stared at his lovely face the whole eleven minutes.

 _Scale all the walls. Harder—_ she had told him.  _Fuck me senseless, please…please…please._

In her subconscious, she had screamed his name.

_Jaqen…_

Those soft waves of red and white still clung to her wanton mind.

_Jaqen, baby._

"Shit."

"What?"

Arya blinked.

_That artist—he's a bad idea. Bad._

"Uh, nothing," she lied, then leaned down to kiss him deeply on the lips. She brushed Aegon's hair with her fingers, fought against the thorns twisting themselves bloody in her chest. "I…love you, Aegon. You know that, right?"

He grinned. "And I love you, too."

"Are you still going to force me to come?" She asked.

Aegon sighed, brought her hand to his lips. "Would I be able to change your mind about not going if I tell you it's going to be in Santorini?"

That's where they had met during her solo trip in the Cyclades three years ago. It's their love niche, the place whose steps and panoramic views held all of their very fond memories of each other.

They would always jape about finding Atlantis beneath it.

_Consider it an engagement gift._

Will he propose?

Her smile grew wider—a yes, accompanied by a silent wish. "Oh, Aegon the Sixth."

"Yes!" he exclaimed, then sat up to kiss her all over the face. "I knew you won't be able to say no to me."

Sin unclothed her, played tricks on her addled mind. All she thought about in the midst of her lover's sweet kisses were Shades of Rue…and the too orthodox tux of solemn black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ['You wrecked my whole world when you came...'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoZWTEXRgKo)


	2. Mediterranean

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I own nothing:
> 
>  
> 
> ['From hate to love, love to lust, lust to truth.'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OymcD_qUtnM)
> 
>  
> 
> Some things: 
> 
> Sabine is the Waif.  
> Aegeus is the Handsome Man.  
> Both are Faceless assassins in the Asoiaf canon. :)  
> Thanks for the comments and kudos, guys.

  

A yacht spree, Aegon had told her.

 _He left out the 'luxury' part on purpose,_ Arya mused as she surveyed the boat's deck and exterior.  _It's a freaking giga-yacht._

A hundred and twenty feet long, manned by a crew of eight, with a couple of main stewards. The deck has an infinity pool. She could only imagine what's on the boat's interior. Maybe the hulls have diamond bits in them and the rudders allow the boat to fly by night.

It was one sophisticated machine. Ridiculously flashy, too.

"This is…really nice," she said, gripping Aegon's arm tightly. Arya felt unsure of herself for the first time, like she was a little out of place. Curious—Arya Stark is  _the_  authority in print across the CW and the Square Mile. Big shots at the financial district and political talks-of-town practically fear her and the daily paper she's running, and it's a common thing for them to endeavor to always be on and  _stay_  on her good side. Print never lies and she was ruthless when it comes to the truth.

One of the many reasons, too, why Aegon pursued her—he needed someone from the press. Good for business and all that. And she has a thing for powerful men who could help her get back everything she had lost—her ancestral home, her family, so here they are.

But a juvenile yacht spree and she's cowering beside her lover like this?

Aegon led her to one of the rattan seats beside the pool.

"Yeah, Jaqen loves the sea a lot, so…"

"Jaqen?!"

His brows furrowed. "Whoa."

"I…I mean," she exhaled, then with all the coolness and poise she could gather, sat on the cushioned seat. She ruled her face, though she was aware of the heat that had risen to her cheeks. "I didn't know painters could afford boats like this."

"That's a bit mean," Aegon grinned, sitting beside her. "Stereotypes—and here I am, thinking that an esteemed journalist such as yourself knew better."

"I'm sorry, it's just," she roamed her eyes around, taking in every elegant detail. "This is crazy as hell."

"I know," he answered, then took a sip of his gin and tonic. "There are women. He likes to show off sometimes and he doesn't exactly know what to do with his money, so…"

 _Unlike you,_ Arya wanted to say.  _Unlike you who has everything all figured out._ "Does he have a name for this boat?"

The response came from a deep purr.

" _The Winter Maiden_."

Arya kept her eyes locked on Aegon's face, keeping her calm, willing herself to breathe in steady rhythms, even as she was quivering and screaming and convulsing and breaking apart inside, all because of that damned voice she had been dreaming about for more than fourteen nights.

How many people would dare say that two souls may fall in love merely by looking at each other's eyes in one accidental meeting?

She scoffed.  _Really? Love is too strong and too quick a word for this, isn't it?_

The woman could see him through her peripheral vision. Tall, a little tanned, wearing comfy, white cotton shirt and trousers. His top was unbuttoned from collar to chest, exposing a bit of his golden skin.

She smiled sardonically and without even looking at the artist, spoke. "How very vanilla."

Jaqen's lip tipped up. "The boat or me?"

She rolled her eyes, still not looking at him. "How about both?"

Aegon chuckled. "What did I tell you?" He stood and gave Jaqen a friendly squeeze. The latter returned the gesture.

"Yeah, you're right. She  _is_  something," Jaqen replied, his gaze trained on Arya. "Had a rather interesting encounter with her at the Cube."

"What can I say?" Arya answered, letting her eyes move towards Jaqen's face lazily. She felt her innards melt at those eyes…those sensational, mischievous eyes.  _Lonely…perfect._ "Aegon likes to collect dolls that can actually talk back."

Jaqen threw her an arrogant half-smile and took a seat from across them, leaned against the splat like he owned the world and then some. He casually,  _elegantly_  held out a hand and a server handed him a glass of vodka. Everything about him was too…classic. Yet, she could sense that there was something untamed about him, too. It wasn't the mere savageness of a predator. No, Jaqen H'ghar is  _not_  a lion with a mane of gold that could pass for a beast's crown.

He's a _dragon._

_A fiery, sexy one._

The boat hadn't moved yet, but naughty wind was already toying with some loose strands of his hair that have escaped from his usual man-bun. He took a sip from his glass and tilted his head, raked Arya's form with an ambiguous stare, unmindful of anything else. Even that act appeared to be too cultured, too  _artistic_.

_And sensual as hell._

Arya's throat bobbed. This whole encounter was making her throat really dry.

"Well, that's interesting," he said with a hint of tease. "Talking dolls."

She threw him her sweetest smile, even as she wanted to give him the middle finger.

Suddenly, an insanely beautiful woman appeared from inside the cabin and headed towards them. Aristocratic, modish. A redhead like him. Her long, manicured fingers brushed the strands of her hair away.

Arya almost gasped when the woman shamelessly sat on Jaqen's lap and kissed him on the cheek.

Jaqen stroked the woman's bottom in response, squeezed it gently.

The woman reacted by pressing her buttocks some more against Jaqen's…man-parts. She squirmed a little on top of him to adjust herself, agonizing the man, seducing him despite Aegon and Arya's presence on that boat. Jaqen only smirked coolly and pretended it was nothing, his eyes still locked on Arya's flushed face.

"Melisandre, guys," he introduced the woman. "Mel, these are Aegon and Arya. The power couple I was talking about." He winked at the both of them.

Jaqen and Mel's blazing red hair shone in the late afternoon sun, coming on too strong for Arya's liking. They  _actually_  looked more like a power couple than she and Aegon do. Curious—but she was suddenly irritated by the thought that another woman gets to touch Jaqen's wavy hairlocks.  _The artist's lapdog,_ Arya mused. She was quick to shove the bubbling hatred away.

The woman just gave them both a bored smile. "Pleasure."

With the usual charm, Aegon inclined his head in acknowledgment. Arya didn't bother returning the woman's words. Then, she heard Aegon chuckle and converse with Jaqen in another tongue.

" _Wo ist die andere frau_?" Aegon asked.

_Where is the other woman?_

"Bellegere?" Jaqen grinned then waved his hand dismissively. He gave Mel's right leg a playful squeeze. " _Ich war schon mit ihr gelangweilt_ …"

_I was already bored with her._

Arya couldn't help it. "Bellegere Otherys? The VS model?"

Aegon laughed softly and kissed her hand. "Yes, love. That's the one."

Oh…okay.

Her inner self scoffed and rolled her eyes. So what if this guy's been screwing the whole Vogue? Why should she care?

_What a detestable rake._

She turned her attention to Aegon fully. "I thought the other guys are coming?" she asked in an effort to divert the conversation elsewhere. Her hands just traveled immodestly to Aegon's inner thigh. She traced infinity patterns across the fabric, and saw his hardness building beneath the khaki shorts.  _Two can play this game,_ Arya thought. She smiled and leaned into him, whispered in his ear. "I can't wait to get to Santorini, babe."

Of course, she knew that Jaqen's eyes were on them.

He appeared amused, unmoved.

And she couldn't quite tell why, but she was so irked that her small act did not seem to affect the artist one bit.

Aegon faced her and planted a very decent kiss on her lips. "It'll be just Aegeus and Daario. And two more you haven't met yet. Sabine's coming too, just you wait. We'll move once we all set foot on deck."

"I'm sorry, just…I want to be alone with you already…" she flirted with the usual come-hither voice reserved only for Aegon, then fiddled with the collar of his shirt.

Jaqen laughed.

Arya's back straightened and she stared viciously at the man.

"Dude," he began, shaking his head at Aegon and grinning. "She's so  _cute_."

 _Cute?_ She was flirting with her man, damn it!

Arya's eyes narrowed, then cruised to the woman sitting on Jaqen's lap. Why, of course. She does look like a girl compared to the one he called Mel—the face of  _haute couture_ , a definite party animal, perfect face and body, one breathing mannequin built to pleasure men such as this red-and-white-haired douche who's earning millions by doing watercolored nonsense.

To her surprise, Aegon was smiling, as if agreeing with the artist's shallow description of her. "Very sweet too."

"Stop calling me cute," she snapped at both men, ignoring Mel's soft laughters. "Or sweet."

"Fine," Jaqen shrugged. "Fine,  _lovely girl_."

She liked the pet name, her subconscious decided. She  _loved_  it as much as she loved his deep voice, the seductive purr—simple as that.

Yes, Arya thought. Jaqen could call her lovely girl all he wanted. And maybe…maybe he could whisper that endearment in her ears too, while they walk hand in hand in the streets of Santorini, taking in the briny smell of the sea and the warm breeze. He could call her lovely girl while they both gaze out onto the Mediterranean through the terraces by the steep paths, sipping weak wine and talking about some plans for the coming months, or days, or just…for that one night. They could chase the sunset and run to the doors of the Villa Irini, and he could kiss her there as the day fades and do whatever he wanted with her afterwards...and he could promise her anything, and she would believe him.

_Lovely girl, lovely girl, lovely girl._

Angst suddenly hammered her chest. Arya wanted to cry.

_What's…happening to me?_

She wore that mask of indifference and rolled her eyes, ignoring the claws ripping her heart open. "Whatever."

She excused herself, roamed around the deck while Jaqen and Aegon talked. A host of vague feelings consumed her heart, the strongest of which is distaste towards the redhead whose arms were coiled around Jaqen's neck like tentacles.

_Damn it._

_I love Aegon._

_I love him, don't I?_

That artist is drawing her to him like Jupiter's gravity.

And her perfect, serene world she had realized, was now turned upside-down.

* * *

 

It certainly helped that Sabine was there.

"You really think so?" Arya asked her. They were both in front of the mirror in that extremely flamboyant room beside the yacht's den, trying out pieces for the night swim. "He has not exactly…given me hints about it."

"Why do you think would he drag us all to the Mediterranean if he's not going to bend the knee?" the woman replied, fixing Arya's halter. "Three years—that's enough dating, even for the likes of him. Time to take it to the next level."

Arya clicked her tongue. "If I get too tired of waiting for him to propose, I'll drag him to the first chapel we see along Fira and force the question out of him."

Sabine laughed. "Chill. Just let Aegon do his thing. Don't get ahead of yourself, please. You have that tendency, and to be frank, it sucks a little."

Arya laughed, too. She remembered it quite well—how she got ahead of herself and told Sabine about Aegeus's plans to propose. The day came and Sabine wasn't anymore surprised. Aegeus was devastated.

They've been married for two years now, and expecting their first child.

The others were already in the pool when they went out from the cabin.

Arya clenched her teeth upon spying who's there with the artist.

 _She's a goddess in two-piece,_ she thought. Melisandre's laughter was a harlot's. It was annoying as hell.

"Ugh," Sabine said, dipping one foot in the water. "I hate  _every_  woman Jaqen brings with him during vacations. They're all…loud." She went down the pool and swam. "Take off that wrap and get your ass in here."

"Yeah, Arya. Take it off," Aegon teased. He swam towards her and rested his arms on the edge of the pool. He reached out a finger to touch her bare toes and began tickling her. She laughed. Oh, she wanted to drag Aegon out of that damned pool and push him on the king bed, taste him, take him. His ash-blonde hair glistened in the moonlight, his pale skin looked absolutely tempting now that he's wet all over, now that drops of water played across his well-toned body. "Jump, baby. I promise I'll catch you."

Arya smiled.  _Gosh, he looks so divine._

The lust disappeared when she heard Mel squeal a little.

Jaqen was kissing her neck.

No second thoughts. Arya took off the wrap and threw it on the rattan seat, then stood like one marbled exhibit at the edge of the pool for a few seconds in her blood-red bikini.

Daario whistled. Aegeus laughed at him.

Sabine grinned. Aegon stared at her with lustful, worshipping purple eyes. He licked his lips and sucked in air.

Mel's charmed giggles were hushed asudden.

Jaqen's jaw dropped.

 _Cute and sweet, am I now?_ Arya clapped for herself inwardly, before taking a graceful dive.

She knew what she had to do then.

The whole night, Arya enticed Aegon over glasses and glasses of dry Martini.

She was drunk. She was out of control yet so  _in_  control.

The whole night, she had her long legs wrapped around his waist under the water. The whole night, she kissed him, and licked his wet cheeks and neck and shoulders, and laughed a little too loudly at his japes and dirty whispers, and moved sensually against his hardness—a prelude for something sinful…and lewd…and scandalous.

"Shut up…" Arya giggled and bit his ear gently. "And stop being so modest. You know that every damned woman at the Wharf wants Aegon the Sixth Targaryen under her pink, fluffy sheets."

Aegon chuckled and whispered back. "Shush…maybe I should carry you to bed now. You've had a lot to drink."

"Carry me to bed," Arya murmured, burying her face in Aegon's neck. "Spank me, tie me up…I don't care."

She was laughing inside like a mad villain.

Jaqen was watching them both. And despite that calm façade he's wearing—one of his many, many faces—Arya knew that he was fuming beneath.

He's the only one who actually cared at all. Daario and Aegeus and Sabine, and two other friends of theirs, were occupied with their own conversations.

How many times had she seen Jaqen hardening his jaw? Or letting out a bitter exhale?

How many times had she sensed him flinching a little whenever she would laugh like a vixen? Or clenching his fists tightly as if provoked?

She giggled again, like a jade.

This time, she heard him curse.

Arya turned her attention to Jaqen and raised a brow. "Such filthy mouth. Just close it if you don't have anything nice to say," she scolded him, before finding Aegon's lips and kissing the hell out of him.

* * *

 

_Damn that woman._

Aegon's doll had managed to ruin his whole night. Even Melisandre had sensed that he wasn't in the usual zone. He refused to share her bed and gave her a lame excuse, blaming the vodka and the warm gust of wind even though it's almost autumn. The redhead was offended of course, and she knew better than to believe him. "You're too distracted—I don't like my men distracted, Jaqen. I don't like men who are unsure of whether or not they want to be with me. As soon as we reach dock, I must insist that we part ways. I have engagements in Thessaloniki," she had told him.

"Go," was his brusque response to her before walking off. "I'll be busy in Santorini anyways. And you talk too much. I want my women quiet." But that was just his pride speaking. He couldn't ask Mel to stay for a few days just so he could rub it in Arya's face that she's not the only one who can play.

And now, he will spend the whole damned week in Greece without any weapon in this war Arya had started.

Jaqen wanted to punish her so badly.

He's going to make her fucking lose it.

The hallway leading to the common cabin was empty, all of them have retired for bed. Jaqen couldn't sleep, and he didn't want another altercation with Melisandre so he decided that he would instead spend the night on one of the couches in the boat's den—no other choice. Damn, he should have bought velveteen chesterfields instead of leather sofas. But then, he never thought it's even possible for him to get kicked out of his own yacht suite.

Mel had thrown him one feather pillow before shutting the door on his face.

On top of all the drama, he has not started with the figurative in oil which would be shipped to Spain next month. Losing that deal would cost him hundreds of thousands in cold, hard cash.

 _Just couldn't stay away from the liqueur,_ Jaqen thought upon seeing a figure sitting in the bar.  _It's not like this is the last night to get sloshed._

He paused with his steps upon realizing whose silhouette that was.

Arya's back was to him, and she was already in her pajamas. She wasn't drinking at all, she was  _already_  drunk. Why wasn't she in bed yet? Does Aegon know she's here? Maybe they had a fight, too?

 _Oh yes_ , Jaqen thought, his blood descending between his legs. The hairs of his arm rose in thrill.  _I do wish they had a nasty fight._

She was both peril and allure, irresistible yet untouchable, and she was pulling him deep into whatever hell she is currently dwelling in.  _Red bikini? Only the devil would wear that._  Flawless, and the fact that she was forbidden to be had made her more appealing to him.

But no, he couldn't go mad over her. She's already owned by someone—by his closest friend, no less.

Jaqen scoffed. If there was one truth he had realized about Arya Stark in his scant knowledge of her, it's that she's the type who wouldn't allow herself to be owned by anyone.

And that made him clench his teeth. All his life, he was persuaded that he was entitled to so much in this world.

She's too…independent. Like she doesn't need anyone at all—especially men, like everyone and everything were mere accessories to her already complete self, and that included Aegon the Sixth Targaryen himself.

Jaqen heard her laugh softly.

"Stop checking me out," she murmured, her speech a little slurred yet still very clear.

"Don't flatter yourself," Jaqen shot back, then threw his pillow on one of the sofas.

She giggled. "Uh-oh…looks like someone got tossed out tonight."

"I'm guessing you mean yourself?" Jaqen asked with sarcasm, even as his flesh was quivering with both want and rage. He couldn't quite understand why his head felt light yet his flowing blood was hot and heavy; and he was so sure that his skin smelled more of lust than of alcohol. "Got Aegon mad, didn't you?"

"Oh no," she replied in an enticing voice. She swiveled in her seat and faced him, with crossed legs and head tilted to the side. Her now heavy-lidded eyes glistened in response to the den's dim lights. "I needed to get away from him for a while. Your dear friend was all over me and I…" she laughed again. "I'm already so  _sore_."

Jaqen folded his arms across his chest, smirked. "He's  _that_  good, huh?"

Arya's eyes widened with girlish delight. She ran the fingers of one hand across her chestnut of hair, then squeezed her own breast with the other. She raised her chin defiantly, testing, provoking. "You have  _no_  fucking idea."

Something inside him exploded like bad,  _bad_  chemistry.

_Fuck this._

He pushed away the glass table blocking his way. It toppled on the carpeted floor and broke with a muted sound. Jaqen rushed to her—fury and beastly hunger consuming him. He grabbed her nape with one hand and forced her the closest to him, his other hand at the small of her back. Arya was still seated, but her right leg was already coiled around Jaqen's waist, and her sex was against his—only the thin fabric of her PJs and his cotton trousers separated them. Despite his show of savagery, she was still laughing.

Arya was laughing  _at_  him.

Women  _don't_  laugh at Jaqen H'ghar. Oh no, they don't.

"Shut up, Arya Stark," he purred, his lips now so close to hers. He took in her sexy scent. "Shut up or I swear, I'll shove  _something_  inside that pretty mouth to drown your senseless hilarity."

She didn't listen. Of course, she wouldn't. "Oh, look at you…" she teased him in between laughters. "What the hell happened to you, Van Gogh? Did I maybe say something that drove your impressionist tendencies mad?"

Jaqen hissed, raving.

For nights he had kept himself on his own damned leash, fighting the urge to catch her and trap her and steal her, turning his head the other way in order not to witness her simmering in her own woman's juices, reaching ripeness.  _Shit_ , he had practiced restraint so he may keep himself from ravishing her and wolfing her down to the last inch.

Damn it, he would not be insulted like this.

"You're asking for trouble, aren't you?" he growled, pulling her to him, moving his hips slowly, and rubbing himself against her. She gasped in genuine surprise. He cupped her bottom and began grinding against her—pleasing her a little, punishing her for the most of it. He buried his face in her neck. "You're dangling Aegon in front of me, you cruel woman? For what?"

It was as if their bodies were made for  _this_ —were made for each other. Jaqen felt his own sex throbbing, thick blood rushing to it twice as fast.

"Hah…" she exhaled, pushing Jaqen away from her. Useless, he doesn't have the slightest intention of letting her go—not tonight. "S-stop…" she giggled, then threw her head back. "Fine, you've made your point."

His machismo escalated. "No, I haven't, sweetheart. I'm just getting started."

Jaqen is going to fuck her against the bar, and to hell with the expensive bottles of rum and whisky if these all fall from the counter while he does his wild thing, to hell with those who might walk in on them. To hell with his bestfriend, Aegon. The mere idea should make her think twice next time about laughing at him.

But she couldn't help it—he was stroking her buttocks and rocking against her and he was…so  _delicious_.

Jaqen H'ghar was driving her insane, like the entire world was melting in his every touch and squeeze and hot breath all over her wind-kissed skin.

She laughed. He cursed.

"No…" Arya assured him that it wasn't to mock him. She was all liquored up and was almost seeing double, but she could still feel. Oh yes, she could really, really  _feel_  him. "It…it tickles," she explained, then clapped a hand to her mouth to keep herself from squealing when the man moved faster against her. "Gosh…Jaqen…"

"You like it?" he purred, licking the flesh above her breasts. He bit and suckled her pink nipple against her gossamer shirt. "Talk, Arya."

"I…I don't know."

"Oh, come on…"

"Yes…I think I do."

"Why?"

"It's—you're…" she gasped as he pushed himself harder against her. "… _huge_."

All he could think about after hearing those words was fucking her brains out.

He lifted his head from her breast and attacked her lips.

* * *

 

Intense, like a love machine. His lips tasted like alcohol-laced cranberry. The way he kissed her—his style wasn't like Aegon's algorithmic, almost rehearsed and too-polite kisses. Jaqen was rough, flooding her senses, robbing her of the will to breathe her next, or blink and gather her scattered wits. He ravished her mouth as if owning her was a basic right of his.

It was the fiery underworld's own kiss.

_Musk. Strong man-scent._

And he made sure that no nanosecond was wasted as he bit her mouth and sucked it, swallowed its wetness. Helpless groans escaped from him, like he couldn't get enough of her, like his thirst was the type that could never be sated—not in a million hot intimacies.

He tilted his head and went deeper, shoving his tongue inside her mouth. Their teeth clashed.

Arya loved it so much. She cared about nothing at that moment but the raw feel of him, his pulsing manly energy saturating her every pore. His anatomy was demi-godlike, eroticism's own creation.  _More, more…_ she trembled and moaned like a depraved she-wolf in heat.

He kissed her thoroughly, his tongue licking the insides of her mouth, and she wondered how that tongue would feel in between her legs.

 _Wet_. Her panties had gone so very wet.

There will be reddish, angry marks where his mouth and teeth had been all over her body. Aegon would no doubt see these and he wouldn't wait till she gets sober before subjecting her to an ugly inquisition. Yes, she was stoned and feeling slutty and confused—they were both wasted, but she couldn't use that as a reason. It's pathetic and inadmissible.

Aegon would go on a rampage.

She didn't care.

Arya played with him, her writer's mind going nuts.  _It's like tasting a dream, like frolicking with wildfire incarnate._ Her fingers unbuttoned his shirt with haste. She ran her hands across his well-chiseled, firm chest, and she decided—she wanted very much to properly bed Jaqen. The counter's wide enough, it could happen there.

She rubbed his nipples and felt him biting her lips more savagely.

If he wanted to, he could come inside her and she wouldn't protest one whit.

"Mmmmph…" she mewled against his lips.  _Breathe, baby,_ she begged him in silence as she tugged at the band holding his hair.  _Let me breathe…_

_Love me…_

As if hearing her, he released her lips for a while and moved elsewhere—to her cheeks, down to her neck. He knew what he was doing, he knew how to do perfect transitions from wild kisses to delicate ones, knew what she  _needed_. It was as if his mind was connected to her own—circuit to circuit, and he was her personal sex robot programmed only to do whatever it is that she wanted done to her. He grazed his lips against her shoulder gently, the sensuous feel of it so faint it was almost a whisper. By reflex, she drew her chest out.

He took it as a sign.

Jaqen pulled down the neckline of her shirt, letting his scorching, moist mouth close in on her breast. He suckled her wildly and flicked her nipple with his tongue—flicked it, licked it over and over and over that Arya had to throw her head back and let out a desperate squeal.

_Shit! Oh my…_

He fed on her breasts like a starving babe.

"Jaqen!" she screamed and tugged at his now loose hair. She writhed against him but couldn't form the words to tell him to stop because he was  _so_  good at it. He just kept going—covering a large fraction of her breast, licking and kissing and sucking and rocking against her all at once. " _Jaqen, baby_!"

"Quiet, Arya."

"Please…"

"Shush…I need to make you come or I'll go crazy, I swear…"

His left hand reached out inside her pajamas, and Arya's legs fell open shamelessly as if she couldn't control them. She was so aroused that nothing else mattered but Jaqen's purrs and touch and kisses. Her breasts had grown unbearably sensitive, and she wanted… _needed_  to feel him inside.

"Fuck, you're so beautiful down here," Jaqen said in between nipping her jawline. "Plush, soft. You're so wet for me…"

He stroked her sensually, then slid down two fingers inside her.

Her sex rippled—oh, Jaqen knew his thing.

Arya moaned and writhed against his strokes and thrusts, her face flushed with lust. Warm and cold all over, she didn't care if Aegon himself walked in on them and found her circling her hips while Jaqen was finger-fucking her.

His fingers moved in unpredictable, unhurried rhythms, possessive, too…too… _masculine_.

Then, she felt herself quivering uncontrollably. Static shocks engulfed her like jagged arcs of lightning, pleasuring every part of her body. Arya gripped the man's sleeves tightly and let out a throaty cry.

_Jaqen!_

She had climaxed.

 _Damn it_. What was that, like five seconds of him pleasuring her? How could she have climaxed so soon? What the f—

Arya trembled and gasped when Jaqen embraced her tightly—as if she was all that he ever needed—with his face buried in between her breasts.

His exhales came in fits and starts. They were both breathing like a pair of marathoners.

Then, came the whisper. And the whisper was a question. And the question was something she would want to spend her whole life and all her other parallel lives answering:

 _"_ _What have you done to me, lovely girl?"_

No response came out of her.

It wasn't fair. She should be the one asking what he had done to her.

_The scary part is…I might end up loving—_

Arya cut her own flow of thoughts.

She was so  _lost_. Yet, she somehow had found herself albeit in a strange way. It happened the moment she saw this man's lonely eyes at the Cube, when she made it clear that she couldn't quite understand his Shades of Rue.

It was as if she had realized that she had a soul all along, and felt that her soul and this man's soul were made from the same fibers, the same material.

Or maybe, she was just too drunk.

She let her fingers run through his silky hair of red and white.

"Your hair…" Arya whispered. "It's so beautiful. I've…never seen and touched anything like it." She lifted his face so she could gaze at him.

He appeared distraught—like all hell broke loose asudden.

Arya just stared at Jaqen's irises of bronze against the gold, sighed helplessly. Nothing is more bewitching in this world than a beautiful man who was so uncertain of himself.

His eyes.

_Empty…_

_Yet overwhelming._

"Why are you so sad, Jaqen?" she whispered her query, her thumb caressing his cheek. Her forefinger moved to touch his lower lip. Oh, she wanted to bite that lip again. She wanted to kiss him, hold him close and tell him that everything's going to be okay. She wanted to make him smile—not just smirk, but  _really_  smile. "Why are your pretty eyes so sad?"

To her surprise, he broke away from her. Like nothing happened.

"Fix your shirt," Jaqen ordered, his tone impersonal. The detached face was back, the icy air, that unfeeling façade of his. He walked over to the couch and ran his fingers through his hair. "This was a mistake."

Knives plunged themselves into Arya Stark's heart and gut.

She felt like crying.

No, she felt like throwing herself out to the sea and drowning.

_Mistake?_

Of course, this was all a mistake. A foolish, liquor-induced one. He was right.

Yet she felt betrayed, felt like she was murdered by those words that escaped from the lips of this fatal-as-poison, mysterious artist.

Those words came as a shock to her expectant soul. She swallowed and bit her lip as hard as she could.

Why in the world was she still there facing him? Is she waiting for him to take back those words, and touch her again, breathe her air, kiss her, and hold her and promise her things?

_I can't be part of his tragedy._

Arya fixed her shirt and stood. She lifted her chin and looked at him, trying her very best to appear unstirred, even as her heart was being ripped off from her chest. "Let's just keep this between us, then. It's  _nothing_ , anyway—just…tipsiness taking over."

Jaqen stared back at her, his expression vague. "Of course."

She nodded, then sauntered off the den without another glance at him.

It took all the strength she had to not collapse on the deck and sob.

* * *

 

He dreamed that night, and the dream wasn't at all a pleasant one.

That painting was taking the form of his most beloved and his most hated.

The blacks swirled all over the top like dark ghosts, piercing through the cerulean and the amber. The woman's head was missing. Then, there was blood where the skirts should be, interrupting the helix of ink at the base—the base where there was supposed to be dancing and prancing feet.

_She's gone, Jaqen…_

_Gone._

He awoke the next morning feeling lonelier than ever.

And yet, more  _alive_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspiration to Shades of Rue: 
> 
>  
> 
> ['Virevolte' by Caroline Bocquet](https://imgsafe.org/image/11ee39af5d)


	3. Santorini

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ['Why can't I say that I'm in love?'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWn1umCDH5w)
> 
> Thanks for the comments and kudos, guys! :)

 

****

 

They reached Fira without anyone else the wiser about what had happened between them at the yacht.

Guilt consumed him.

_A mistake, yes. Big one._

Santorini was heaven, yet Jaqen couldn't appreciate the multi-colored cliffs, terraced rocks, and the ocean-drowned crags beneath. The beaches were spectacular and the sunsets, gold. The little cafes and shops, the streets were bustling with life and hue.

He noticed not a thing as they lunched in a rather fancy  _estiatório_  overlooking the Mediterranean. He could sense Arya's eyes beneath the cat-eye shades, trained on him.  _Look away,_ he silently begged.  _Please. You're killing me with your stares._  He was only toying with his food and exhaling with annoyance at Daario's usual quips.

" _Never_  say no to women when they demand for your ass in their bed," Daario said in between sips of wine. He chuckled and shook his head. "Have you learned nothing in your thirty years of existence, H'ghar? No wonder why Melisandre faked an appointment in Thessaloniki."

Jaqen's jaw hardened. He slowly turned his head towards Daario and threw him a disparaging smirk. "Talk to me when you've finally found a way to make Daenerys agree on one damned date, will you?"

Daario's smile promptly vanished from his face.

Aegeus laughed. "Cool it, guys. It's too early for a bloody skirmish between you two."

Damn. She's still staring.

It's only the unknown that draws men deep. Last night was as much a gift as it was a curse to him. Had it not happened, he wouldn't have known what Arya Stark tasted like in his wanting tongue, what she felt like against his skin. Nothing special—all women taste the same. Now that he had already satisfied his curiosity, he could kill that oversexed delusion of his about Aegon's girlfriend.

Arya Stark is nothing but typical.  _Basic_.

Jaqen knew he was only lying to himself. There's something about this woman, something nameless, something…transcending the limits of his artist's logic. It was something he couldn't quite visualize, paint,  _understand_.

He realized that after last night, he wouldn't be able to stay away from her.

The sea was lovely with the two o'clock sun but he hated it, hated the lively conversation among his pals, hated that Aegon had his arm wrapped around Arya, caressing her shoulder sensually, whispering in her ear, laughing as if today isn't at all a bad day and the wine wasn't sour and his girlfriend wasn't almost fucked by his bestfriend on a boat.

And she was still staring. Damn it, she was making last night too obvious.

Jaqen exhaled sharply, slightly annoyed. He turned to gawk back at Arya with narrowed eyes.  _Keep staring and I'll drag you out of this place and love you hard on top of the rocks down the Caldera._

And she seemed to have read his mind, thank heavens. Arya blushed and looked away, her back stiffening.

"Everything okay, babe?" Aegon asked.

 _Damn_ , Jaqen wanted to strangle him at that instant.

"Y-yes."

Aegon smiled and kissed her on the side of the lips.

Jaqen looked at Arya and thought about how much they're going to hurt each other. Much, he was convinced.  _So much._

_This folly will break us both._

He stood abruptly, knocking one wineglass over the table. Good thing it was empty. "Excuse me, people," he said, then walked towards the villa without another glance at anyone.

* * *

 

"Here…"

Aegon's lips moved to her neck. Feathery kisses…like an artist's finger when he's adjusting the shades across the outlines of his sketches.

She shouldn't be thinking about artists and shades and sketches right now.

"Here…" Arya ran her forefinger across the flesh of her breasts. She gasped as Aegon's tongue swept across it smoothly.

How can she not think about what had happened? The artist stared at her as if she has the sacred and mysterious face of the goddess herself. He looked at her the way all women would want to be looked at. And he lunged to her with passion she had not seen any man exude before.

Arya cursed herself inwardly. Regardless—that man is nothing but trouble.

_And I am nothing but a tramp._

"Here, love…" and Aegon obeyed her, kissed the tips of her bosoms before wolfing them down voraciously.

She bit her lip tightly. No, she couldn't open her mouth tonight. She might scream out the wrong name.

It wasn't fair to Aegon. That and what she's making him do right now to her. Arya dragged him to their suite at the hotel and said no to Daario's plans of checking out party places at the bay. And why now? Of course, she wanted Aegon's touch and kisses to erase those of Jaqen's, still ghosting all over her like a myriad of erotic specters.

She whispered 'I love you' in his ears—ten-times-ten times, maybe—as she straddled him and let him in.

In the midst of it, she wondered how it would feel to have Jaqen inside her, to feel his raging manhood caressing her tight walls, to see him lose himself over her, to hear him whisper back  _I love_ —

Arya buried her face in Aegon's neck. That didn't stop the tears from falling.

Aegon paused with his movements and looked at her, worry apparent in his face. He brushed the tears from her eyes and kissed her deeply. "Babe? What's the matter?"

He had told her earlier that he was called to a meeting in Athens—" _Work chased me here_ ," he had said, and he would have to be in the capital for two days.

The thought saddened her, though not as much as the pain she was enduring that had absolutely  _nothing_  to do with Aegon leaving Santorini.

"No…" she whispered, then moved on top of him. "N-nothing, please…don't stop…" she kissed him back and murmured her pleas against his lips. "Please, Aegon…" Arya wanted to drown…drown herself in waves of love and lust for this one man she's with so that she could shove away the confusing fondness she felt for the other. She lifted herself, lowered herself, allowed Aegon to penetrate her fully, basked in the warm, familiar, comforting feel of him.

"Slow down, Arya," he murmured against her lips. "God, you're amazing…"

She held him tighter and gave all she had so the tears wouldn't fall again.

* * *

 

"So, who's it going to be?" Sabine asked, sipping from her coffee cup, eyes fixed on Arya. The latter was spreading cheese over her toast, and looked like she was the one who had gone carousing the previous night.

Arya took a bite of toast. "What's that?"

"Who's it going to be?" Sabine repeated, slightly irritated by Arya's pretense at innocence. "The too-perfect-to-the-point-of-annoying guy or the romantic douchebag?"

Her brows creased heavily, playing the part of one confused.

Mere days, and Arya felt her gray matter being blown to the wind by the urges and the lust, the desire for more of  _him_ , the guilt, the love and the hope for it—

"What are you even talking about?" Arya laughed nervously and took another bite of bread. She had swallowed the piece without even chewing it, and choked. Sabine was quick to pour her a glass of water.

"You are the greatest masquerader that I know, Arya Stark. Just… _wow_. Have you ever considered shifting careers?" Sabine asked, a little sardonic. "You could be an actress. Or better yet, an assassin. You could do dirty undercover work for the bad guys and live in compartmentalized identities. Yep, you'd do great as an assassin, girl."

"You're cranky today," Arya shot back calmly, trying to control herself despite Sabine's biting words. "I didn't know that pregnancy side-effects actually included being a bitch."

The words were out before she had realized.

Much to her relief, Sabine only laughed at her surly retort.

"Oh my, I was right," the woman rested her chin on her hand and stared at Arya teasingly. "You're in love."

"That's certainly news," Arya remarked with nonchalance. "As I've been dating a guy for three years now and am expecting a marriage proposal in like, two days."

Sabine giggled. Arya's eyes widened in slight shock at her reaction. She never giggled like that.

"Oh, you!" the woman spanked her lightly on the arm. She leaned in closer, checked if they were alone before whispering: "I meant with  _Jaqen_."

Arya's heart stopped; her mind spun as she tried to think of a hundred possible ways out of this—laugh then shriek 'What?!', snap at the woman, walk out, ignore those foolish words altogether because anyway, they're  _not_  true?

_You're in love._

_No._

Her heart was cycling through the same madness—falling, hurting herself, getting healed, losing, loving with all her heart all over again.

She cannot admit to it. Not only is it false, she's not the type to betray the man she  _truly_  loves. How could Sabine even accuse her like that?

But a sense of tightness closed in around the room, invading every bit of space, stealing her capacity to breathe. It filled her to the brim, and she felt like exploding, then dying…

And she realized she couldn't bear it. She couldn't bear the thought of laying eyes on that man and holding herself back. Every damned day, they would keep on bumping into each other while they're both in that island, colliding like comets from opposite directions, bursting, leaving ashes and pain as they go on separate courses.

His lonely eyes, she had learned, were a reflection of her  _own_  sadness.

And in her hidden sadness, Jaqen had become her favorite daydream.

_This cannot be._

Sabine took advantage of her lingering silence. "Aegeus had always said that only the most demented of the lot would dare fall in love with Jaqen but he's actually a good man. He's just, well,  _complicated_."

"Complicated how?" Arya asked, keeping her voice at a monotone. "Not that I care, I mean, I don't even know the guy."

A snort came out of Sabine. "Yeah, you definitely sound like you don't care."

"I don't!"

"Fine. Then, there's no point even talking about him. And fine," she winked. "You're not mad about the artist."

Arya wanted to strangle Sabine for choosing to shut up about Jaqen.

Hiding her emotions only escalated her forbidden longing for him. But what can she do? Shout her feelings out from the island's blue domes—how ever unsure she may be of those?

That afternoon, Arya walked along the white village of Oia by the island's northern tip. Her feet wandered through those familiar curvy streets and steps, and whenever she got tired, she would pause and look into the turquoise sea just a little below the point. The winds blew the skirts of her maxi, and she struggled to keep her hat about her head. She needed to be alone, collect herself, think about what she's supposed to do with her life.

The waters still seduced her, consumed her. The way Aegon had when they had first met in that very village. She was taking shots of the city by sunset through her newly purchased SLR and had gotten so close to the steep edge of the Oia castle. She recalled taking just half a step, then falling, expecting to hit the rocky crags and ending up with mangled bones beneath the Mediterranean, before an insanely beautiful man caught her by the waist and held her and whispered in her ear, ' _Don't get too carried away with Greek sunsets_.'

Her camera had fallen off the cliff—lens and all.

She had fallen too, albeit in a different way.

Arya wanted Aegon there, wanted to hear him and feel him. She didn't want this confusion to make fault and fool out of her. She wanted to stop feeling so miserable.

She returned to Fira, parked her rented car, and headed for the villa where they're all staying. Her skin crawled as she heard a familiar laughter from one of the open courtyards.

_Gods, I can't even whisper that man's name. My heart would just shatter if I do._

She started walking away for fear that he might discover her there, but small hands tugged at her skirt.

"Can you help me?"

The little girl had hopeful eyes as blue as the sea, curls of golden thread. She looked to be around five.

"Uh, with what?" Arya asked hesitantly, but the girl had already pulled her inside the yard. "Wait..."

And she saw  _him_ —surrounded by maybe ten kids, all of them doing art of some kind on canvases and clothes and skin, laughing, playing with the hues, with some chasing the others with filbert and glaze brushes tinted with rainbows. Jaqen was helping one boy with a sketch, completely oblivious to the fact that two tykes were already painting the back of his white shirt with whatever colors they could dip their brushes into. He looked so alive and young and…

_Happy._

Arya couldn't help but smile.

_He's such a beautiful mess._

She felt that tug again. "Please," came the little girl's plea.

"Okay," she said, pinching the girl lightly on the chin. "What can I help you with?" She let the little girl lead her to one of the paint-splattered tables.

"I don't know how to draw winter princess."

"Oh," was all Arya could manage to say. She didn't know how either. "Like the one on Frozen, you mean? Well, let's see…" she stole a quick glance at Jaqen who was now aware that she's there, and was assessing her through narrowed eyes. She tried not to flinch at his too sensational stares, although his mere presence, his mere  _existence_ , already brought sex to her mind. "Let's draw a circle for the head and some sticks for the arms and legs…" Jaqen had stood up and was now striding towards her. She only ignored him. "And some wavy lines for the hair over here…"

She felt the hairs on her nape rise.

He was now directly behind her, watching her closely.

And he was just so… _masculine_.

He clicked his tongue in disapproval, leaned over to her. His chest pressed against her back, and Arya gasped at the lack of space between them. She suddenly felt conscious of the very low neckline of her maxi, revealing a small part of her breasts. Her cheeks burned upon recalling that there was absolutely no point hiding her breasts anymore—Jaqen had already bit and licked and suckled them.

Her insides were melting.

His left hand moved to hold hers, then with expertise, guided her in sketching. "Don't just do art, Arya Stark," he purred. "Think and  _feel_."

And in those few moments when their bodies touched, when their hands held each other to create something whole, she felt curiously…complete. It's as if being so close to him meant not needing anything more—not even air.

She swallowed hard and felt her eyes burn when they had finished the sketch.

The winter princess' face was  _hers_.

Arya wouldn't even draw herself like that even if she could—it's just too lovely to be true.

A gleeful clap came from the little girl. She took the paper from them both and with her plump hands, began coloring the sketch.

Jaqen straightened up and without another word, headed back to the other children.

"I didn't know you're a leftie too," Arya said, for lack of anything to say. She wanted the tension between them to end—the sexual tension particularly, and the only way to do so is by showing him some form of civility.

The man turned back, raked her whole form with one sticky stare. His eyes lingered on her breasts, her woman's parts, before returning to her face. "I'm ambidextrous. I can use both hands very,  _very_  well."

 _Shit._ Arya trembled.

"Uhm…" she stammered.  _What's this?!_ She's never lost for words. "This is really nice…the kids and the painting. You do this a lot?"

His face softened at the mention of the children. A smile played at the corners of his mouth. "Do you like them?"

_Yes, Jaqen…I love children very much._

_Babies…_

"Who doesn't?" Arya replied with a kind smile, cursing the persistent, provoking voice in her head. Her gaze roamed around the young ones. But truly, she was touched. This was one part of Jaqen she didn't know about. This cold ivory actually has a tender, affectionate part.

It was so intense, the whole scenario like living aesthetics, that the beauty of it made her want to sob.

Still, she couldn't quite tell why her emotions as of late seemed to want to murder her from the inside.

"I do this whenever I visit the island," Jaqen told her, then motioned to the house which was actually a studio, as Arya had learned. "This place belongs to a friend. He sets up a workshop in here every month. Parents would leave their children to paint while they visit the high points."

"So, you're practically babysitting," Arya teased him.

To her surprise, Jaqen grinned. "You can say that."

"Oh, poor you. What would the girls say now if they see you with the little ones, Jaqen H'ghar?"

He laughed at the remark.  _Genuinely_  laughed. And for a while there, the mirth from his lips reached his eyes of gold and Arya saw him, his shields down right in front of her, just  _him_ —just his loveliness.

Aegon said Jaqen is based in Berlin.  _Maybe,_ Arya thought, smiling at the thought that she had made the man laugh.  _And maybe, he was born in Olympus._

Jaqen had introduced her to Syrio, the studio owner. They hit it off pretty quickly, and Arya promised that she would return to see one of his workshops. "I hardly have the talent," Syrio had said, inclining his head in a modest bow. "But  _your_  man here has pools of it—straight from the mount of the gods."

"We're not together, Forel," Jaqen told the other artist. "She's engaged to my friend."

"Not yet," Arya corrected him promptly and as to why, she didn't dare ask herself. "I'm…not yet engaged."

Did she just see Jaqen's eyes sparkle at those words?

"Semantics," he shrugged, then turned to Syrio. "I'm afraid we have to leave. I promised Arya I'll take her to dinner and show her the beach."

She blinked. "Y-you did?"

"Absolutely," he smiled, took her hand, and led her gently from that place.

_Walking hand in hand in the streets of Santorini…_

Arya saw her wishful dreams of him with her being realized right before her very eyes.

It frightened her to death.

* * *

 

A string quartet played in the background.

Jaqen only stared at her in between sips of white wine.  _She's beautiful,_ his thoughts screamed.  _Soul, and everything else._ It was not just in the art sense. There was a certain careless grace to her that she didn't know she had, an unrehearsed innocence behind the harsh mask, kindness even, and that made her even more alluring in his eyes.

_And she's just very fuckable._

He shouldn't have taken her to a romantic dinner. It's practically a place for couples, honeymooners, mostly. He's opening floodgates here.

 _Forgive me, Aegon,_ Jaqen thought.  _Forgive me, but I just want to be with your woman tonight._

He knew that he was doomed from the very moment he had set his eyes on Arya Stark. He couldn't love—he  _couldn't_. It wasn't because he didn't wish to, he simply doesn't have the capacity for it, and his past had everything to do with the fact.

Love. Why was he even thinking about that damned word?

He was attracted to her, that's it. Does he want to fuck her, like…hard? Oh, totally. He wants to see her body claw at his bedsheets, feel her writhe under him as they collide deliciously, hear her moan his name and witness her go more mad than mad over him. He wanted to feel his own cum inside her while he fucks her with his fingers, then wake up in the same bed with her every damned morning of his life, make her pancakes, drive with her to town to see the gallery, lift her and spin her in circles when he learns that same day that she's carrying his baby and—

_Gods be damned._

He's going crazy.

"I'm sorry, Jaqen," she broke the silence. "I mean…about the incident in your yacht. We were both drunk and I hope we can…forgive each other."

He smirked, then sadly dropped his eyes. "Do you regret it?"

Her body tensed. "Well,  _you_  did. I heard you clearly say how it was all a mistake."

"You were so beautiful that I couldn't help myself," Jaqen said, his lips curling into a sad half-smile when she blushed. He took another sip, settled the fluted glass on the table. "I want you so badly that it hurts. I'm sorry, Arya Stark, but the man in me aches whenever I think of you."

"Is that all that I am to you?" Arya's voice was now laced with faint indignation, hurt. "A breathing fuck thing? An unfinished business?"

He cringed at her words. For moments, they just held each other's gazes, neither one giving up on the arrogance, the mask, neither one risking getting hurt.

"You seduced me," he murmured his accusation.

"I was not myself that night," she shot back. "Maybe we both lost ourselves. Maybe we weren't thinking straight —"

"I'm not talking about the yacht," Jaqen cut her with a growl. "I'm talking about that day when you went to the Cube and saw my work. You seduced me—you breathed, you blinked, you laughed, you pursed your lips, you spoke. Damn, you  _existed_  in my life and you ruined me then. You still ruin me now."

"What are you talking about?!"

Those seated close to their table were now looking at them. Some from the farther side craned their necks to have a better look. Lovers' catfights are rare in that island, and the sea sometimes gets a little boring.

He shook his head, exhaled and turned his attention to his steak. "I don't know."

_A lie._

Jaqen was falling. He was falling from the cliffs and out to the sea, through space, void, moments, histories. Men fear what they couldn't understand, and he couldn't understand this—why, for the longest time, the flashes of all of his days meant nothing, felt empty, until…

_This woman._

_What the hell?_

Jaqen stood. "Let's head back to the villa—"

"No…" she whispered, then looked up at him with determined eyes. "You told Syrio you promised to take me to the beach."

He scoffed, trying his best to look irritated. "It was a damned excuse, Arya."

"Take me," she stood and slipped her hand gently around his. Their fingers intertwined. She was just too stubborn. "Stop wearing that face in front of me—that damned face of a womanizer, of a man who thinks of nothing but art and money and fucking."

Jaqen regarded her with narrowed eyes. "What do you want?"

"I want to understand," she replied. "…you and myself.  _Us_. Whatever this is."

"There's nothing to understand, Arya."

She tightened her hold of his hand. They're starting to make a scene. "Take me to the beach. You will speak and I will hear you. After that, we'll…stay away from each other."

Jaqen cursed silently.

He doesn't know her.

He doesn't know what makes her smile or cry, what she wants for herself. He doesn't have a clue what her favorite food is, or song if she even has one, what her fetishes are, and how she spends her weekends. He has no idea of the books she reads or the company she keeps or the car she drives or how long it takes her in the bath. He knows nothing about her.  _Nothing_.

Yet… _damn it._

Somehow, he wanted to forever hold on to that nothing.

He couldn't. His past had made sure of the fact that splendid romance only existed in artworks.

He  _couldn't_. If he falls, he would die. He couldn't fall for Arya Stark—her future doesn't include him  _at all_.

Jaqen sighed, nodded.

"Fine. I'll take you there."

_It's time to end this._

* * *

 

_Forgive me, Aegon…_

For minutes, they just walked along the beach in silence. There was the moon and the blinking lights of the smaller yachts and some fishing boats at sea. Faint sounds of chatter could be heard from the nearby taverns and ritzy beach bars.

She didn't know why she had practically begged for a moment alone with this man. One night without Aegon the Sixth and she's spending time with another.

This is wrong—plain and simple. Aegon would get hurt and she'd rather die than see him get hurt. He is everything to her. She had looked in his eyes many, many times and saw in them the rest of her life so clearly.

_Aegon…_

But it's like this other man is stealing her soul, and she couldn't do a thing to stop it. Oh,  _no_ —it wasn't like he's stealing it at all. It's as if he had owned her soul from a previous life or so, and he just came back to take it again simply because it's his.

_There is nothing to understand._

Still, she couldn't help herself.

"What happened to you?" she asked him calmly, her eyes anywhere else but on his face. "Is it a choice? This… isolation?"

"Why do you care?" he asked her back.

"There's something about you," she replied, glancing at him. "And it's trying to get out."

He chuckled softly. "You've been talking to Sabine. I don't know whether to feel flattered or exposed that I've managed to become the topic of your gossips over pedicure."

Arya ignored his sarcasm. "I read one of the reviews about your work at the Cube:  _to understand is to appreciate_ , it said. And I want to understand, Jaqen."

That might have worked. After a few minutes, Jaqen H'ghar had trusted her with the truth.

He was married three years ago.

Jaqen loved that woman more than anything. He gave her all that he had.

He didn't know where he had gone wrong, but his wife came up to him one day and told him she was leaving. She had spoken with a lawyer and wanted a divorce. The grounds— _unreasonable_  behavior on his part.

She falsely accused him of having a woman, of not providing her emotional support, of being distant and too estranged. She claimed to be pregnant with their first child, and said that Jaqen would never be fit to be a father. It was a huge emotional fallout for them both, but he did everything to persuade her not to run away from him.

His wife's petition for divorce was denied. Not only was she diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, she was also the one found with an affair.

And Jaqen had discovered who the man was—Aurion, his long-time rival in the most elite circle of artists. Aurion seduced his beloved wife, convinced her to file for divorce so they could run away with Jaqen's money, so they could inflict the greatest devastation upon him, the kind that would cripple him and maul the whole of him.

His weakness was his own wife, and it was not at all hard to see that.

He needed to protect his woman, take her back from the pit she had fallen into, he needed to  _save_  her. Jaqen exposed Aurion and though his wife didn't believe a single thing for she was so, so drawn to the dark love that she had for years shared with her lover, Jaqen took her with him from Berlin to Cannes, hid her from Aurion.

And she had healed there—he had made sure that she got the best medical attention so she could fight those whispers and delusions. Every day, he painted for her and made her laugh, and when he wasn't painting, he was studying the pianoforte with her as she was a talented musician. Every night, he held her close, and kissed her and touched her, made love to her, and prayed so she may love him back again. Every second, he whispered in her ears:

' _Ich liebe dich mehr als alles andere auf dieser Welt...'_

_I love you than all that is in this world..._

Three months later, she killed herself.

He was so sure he had died with her.

"It was a spit on my face," Jaqen said, his voice quieter than usual. "She knew that she would never see that man ever again, and I made sure of that. And she had made it clear that she'd rather die than be with me."

Arya bit her lip. The pain he had suffered—how had he survived that?

"That's when I was drawn to lyrical abstractions," he continued. "They're vague. You can paint a concept or an emotion without revealing yourself, and people will see the work differently. They could view the art not as it is, but  _as they are_. Not to mention, I can't paint faces anymore, couldn't quite…bring myself to do it."

_Faceless paintings?_

The winds had gone chilly.  _Warmth_. She needed to hold him.

Arya slipped her hand into Jaqen's, gripped him tightly. He squeezed her hand in response.

Then, he slowly withdrew.

Is this just some form of foolish fancy?

"Let's do something mad," Arya said, trying to lighten the mood. She pointed at the colossal, black rocks close to paths of Fira. "See that diving point?"

"Yes," he replied. "The cliff goes straight to the—wait…" he yanked her arm so she could face him. "We couldn't just go there without the gear and the guides. It's practically illegal and if they catch us—"

"Scared?" Arya smirked. Then without another word, she ran to the high point.

"Arya, wait!"

They reached the point in no time. Arya threw her hat on the ground and began removing her maxi dress. She tossed her garments beside the hat and laughed when she saw Jaqen averting his gaze from her. She was wearing nothing but her black bikinis. Arya playfully tugged at the soft garter of her panties, and it hit her bare skin with a smack. "Take off your clothes, Jaqen. We'll jump."

Jaqen threw her an incredulous look. "Are you crazy?"

 _Crazy?_ Arya smiled as she gazed straight into his heavy-lidded, very expressive eyes.  _Oh, Jaqen. You have no idea…_

"You will jump with _me_ —shout out whatever pains you have, and let them go. Bellow out your hurts in  _Deutsche_ , or  _Français_ , or  _Russkiy_  or whatever damned language you speak." Without warning, she began unbuttoning Jaqen's shirt.

"Arya!"

"Shush," she silenced him. "Sometimes, you have to have more courage than sense, Jaqen H'ghar."

She chucked his shirt atop the pile of other clothes, then held his hand really,  _really_  tight.

He pulled her away from the cliff. "What the hell is this?" he asked with an admonishing tone, but his eyes were amused and his lips were with a hint of a smile that Arya had to tilt her head to commit every feature of him to memory.

"Taking a risk, Van Gogh."

Then, came the big leap.

They both jumped over the steep cliff, falling…and screaming their lungs out mid-air.  _This is it,_ Arya thought, her feet wriggling in space and her hands still gripping Jaqen's tightly.  _There's no going back._

And maybe one of them would fall first and the other would follow, it didn't matter—she would catch him, and he would catch her.

Their bodies hit the water, and the waves engulfed them till they lost grip of each other's hand. Arya fought against the rush as she looked for Jaqen beneath the sea. Even as her vision was blurred by the briny deep, even as her lungs almost screamed out for air, even as her limbs struggled against the thrashing of the waters, she still searched for him.

Jaqen found her first.

His strong arms lifted her to the surface, then she felt his hands brushing all over her face, ridding it of water and salt. Cold winds blew and by instinct, she wrapped her arms around Jaqen's neck and silently begged him for warmth…

And perhaps he was stirred by that act of hers so much, that he responded by grabbing the nape of her neck and kissing the hell out of her.

It was impossible. In her life, there used to be  _no_  Jaqen H'ghar. Now, there  _is_. Now, he is and will be in every damned thing of her life—everything had suddenly become  _all_  about him.

Flashlights on the water's surface disturbed their impassioned kisses.

"Shit! The guards!" Jaqen exclaimed, pulling Arya towards the black boulders on the other side. "Hide!"

And Arya was laughing as Jaqen led her away from that open area and swam with her towards a more concealed place…and she had never laughed like that before—laughed like everything was just inconsequential but this,  _this_  second, this truth, this one choice among a thousand others.

They reached a large rock that looked like a canopy, some parts weathered by wind and water. Arya leaned against the rough surface and laughed still.

"Quiet yourself, woman," Jaqen scolded her but his own eyes were laughing, too. "They might hear you and discover us here."

Hilarity left her, and her face softened with a smile.  _Jaqen—_ she could forever let the sound of his name roll across her tongue, she could swallow the words that come with that name and relish the taste, but she would never have her fill.

There was nothing else to do but kiss him again—harder, deeper. She reveled in his taste of mint meshed with the salt of the sea, and she was never really the believing type of person but she prayed to whomever may be listening for time to cease so she could never stop kissing him.

She suckled his lower lip, and moved to kiss his jaw, cheek, his shoulders and muscled chest. Her fingers caressed his very firm stomach, as she wrapped her legs around his strong waist.

"You came," she murmured, stroking his wet hairlocks and resting her temple against his. "You came and I started asking questions—what…" she shook her head, let out heavy exhales, one after another. "What is this?"

He gave her a sad smile, as if he knew about it—the flame, fighting the pull, that desire to leave all reason and follow the whispers of the heart.

"Tell me something, Jaqen," Arya whispered her plea. She asked herself if he was as confused as she is.  _Perhaps_. She dared look at him, even as the mist in her eyes might turn to tears anytime. "Anything true about what happened between us. Anything true about…anything."

He exhaled heavily.

"Very well," Jaqen looked at her and caressed her wet cheek with his thumb, and in every word was the sound of pain. " _I wish I had never laid eyes on you_."

She gasped at the pain that suddenly lanced her heart, she felt suffocated. Arya didn't dare look around. If she does and finds the sea too enticing, what with her hurting self, she might drown herself and choose to die there.

The currents of anguish washed through her, and the dreamy sensation of his calloused hands against her skin, the warmth, the comfort of it, had all faded.

"Y-you don't mean that," she murmured, and hated herself for sounding so weak.

"I do," he answered, then planted a soft kiss on her forehead, the side of her lips. "There's something about you, Arya Stark. I couldn't stay away. Yet, I couldn't  _stay_ , either. I don't want you to get close to me—and it's not just because you're with Aegon. I'm nothing but poison, Arya. Just a broken man who was drawn to you, that's all. And we mustn't take this any further than where it already is."

Arya felt numb all over.

Of course.

_Sometimes, the person you fall for isn't ready to catch you._

She nodded, even though she wanted him to free her and take her when she's wild and…

… _love_  her till life leaves him?

She let him go.

"No further," Arya whispered.

* * *

 

Perhaps, what he thought about himself has always been true. He was a coward.

Aegon stared at the black velveteen box containing the Schwartz he had bought for Arya. Diamond in oval halo—she likes it simple and he always kept that in mind. He was supposed to bend the knee in front of her, right under the blue domes of Oia where they had met, and drag her to the Fira church's bell towers and marry her there. They could talk about the wedding with the works after—the one with strings, food, wine, guests. He needed to have her  _for good_  in Greece, witnesses or no.

He had spoken with a priest, but canceled at the last minute before his sudden business trip to Athens.

"…a percentage of the net revenue will go straight to finance the project. The Suisse had agreed to grant us a loan, not that we need it, it's back-up cash only for when things get tough with the shareholders," his financial officer babbled on. He turned towards Aegon who was too preoccupied to pay them any mind. "Boss?" the man called.

Aegon blinked.

He was quick to gather himself. These people had flown thousands of miles for this business meeting, he couldn't lose himself over his woman. "Absolutely no loans. I don't want to give those bankers any reason to follow our asses all year. Take finances from gross profits."

"Yes, Boss."

Two straight days of money talk. He wanted to throw the table out the window, papers and all.

They left him promptly and he was once again alone with his thoughts.

 _Arya Stark._  When did he start obsessing over Arya Stark this much? What's with her that he would always notice the smallest details and build his world around them—the curve of her lips, her lovely face on a random day, the way she talks as if she can form an empire only by breathing out the words? Why was he so locked up in her language and her smiles and her everything? Why does he always dream of her taste in his tongue, and the feel of her that had nothing to do with shallow touches?

It scared him. He had never needed anyone this much. He had never encountered a woman who could be as strong as he is, as powerful as he is in her own way. And had he been blind, he would not have noticed the way she and the artist were exchanging glances, as if speaking in wordlessness, connecting, now both mid-air in their too-irrational choice to fall…

_Damn it._

Jaqen wants Arya, too.

A strong wave of arousal consumed him.  _His_ woman—wanted by another man? He felt himself grow hard at the thought, then reminded himself that he couldn't lose his place as the only man in Arya Stark's life.

He stood and grabbed his coat. He practically pushed Arya towards Jaqen when he asked her to go to the Cube to get him some art.

Aegon rushed to the door, his mind reeling as he rehearsed the words that would go with the ring he has in his hand. He came to a screeching halt as a familiar face greeted him by the door.

"Aegon," Arya said. She gave him a thrifty smile and tiptoed to kiss him on the cheek.

He grabbed her nape and held her lips in a passionate kiss. He growled with desire, with longing _._ Confusion settled in his face when Arya gently pushed him away and bowed her head, deliberately avoiding his gaze. "Arya," he murmured with a smile. "This was such a pleasant surprise. I was about to fly to Santorini—"

"We need to talk," she said, lifting her eyes to his.

Aegon knew that look. He knew it well and so he prayed.  _Let me be wrong, please. Let me be wrong._

He tightened his hold of the velveteen box, then slowly placed his hand in his coat pocket. His thumb rubbed across the softness of it, as if he needed the hollow comfort in the face of what was to come.

"Of course," he replied, then stroked her hair. "Let's sit and have something. You must be very tired. Two days and I've missed you like hell." He gently pulled her hand to lead her to the couch, and his brows creased when she resisted.

Arya shook her head, and she appeared as if she was being torn apart, lost. "I'm sorry," she murmured.

 _This woman,_  Aegon thought as he felt painful claws shredding his heart. He couldn't breathe—not only was he in love with her, he does love her so deeply that he's burning with passion and fear, bliss and misery all.  _This woman is a tempest._

"Tell me," he urged her and reached out to touch her face. He thought better of it and dropped his hand to his side instead.

Arya exhaled and confessed with quivering lips. "I don't deserve you. I've…wronged you."

Aegon wanted to roar with fury and smash whatever he could get his hands on. There was utterly no need to ask her to explain herself further.

His jaw hardened with spite. He was right all along.

He's going to blow the bloody hell out of that fucking artist.


	4. Cannes I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Painting Scene: 'I think I want you more than want...'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_iQgQUrXZc)
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> Warning: Too smutty (for ages 18 and up)
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> Thanks for the comments and kudos. You guys make me write. :)

 

Arya was on her knees, with both of her hands wrapped around the back of his thighs. She could hear him exhaling harshly, groaning. Her breath kissed his rock-hard length, and seeing it quiver in response to her stroked pleasure through her melting, damp core.

The lights of the gallery were dimmed, and since the displays all over them were mere abstractions and the unreal, no judging eyes could see their planned lechery for that night.

"Lick me," Jaqen purred.

The tone of his command aroused her, and the raw, heated sex-words made her moan even though he had not moved yet to touch her. She looked up to him, his back against the wall with two paintings on oil on either side of him, naked like one god of indulgence.

And she realized, they might kill each other tonight with their own lusts.

She ran her tongue sensually across the underside of his length, her heart leaping with delight when she tasted his manly spice from the wetness that came out. Her lips flowed gently over the wide crown of him, and she began stroking him with  _both_  hands—he was just so thick. She tasted the plush head and wrapped her lips around it. Arya felt Jaqen grow bigger with her many caresses and licks, and felt the veins across his length growing more visible.

Vibration rippled through her entire body when she sensed him trembling. Her hands curled tighter around his hardness and she fisted him north and south while her tongue kept on rubbing circles across his cap and her mouth sucked him gently.

She drew him in through steady rhythms, hoping for him to burst right in her face.

Sweet agony rumbled in his chest, and so Arya went deeper, hollowing her cheeks out so she may pleasure him more.

"Arya…" he growled. "Keep sucking… _Arya_ …" his fingers tangled themselves with the loose strands of her hair. "You suck me so damned well, baby…you're so fucking good…"

His lust for her, his filthy mouth turned her on, made her greedier. She sucked deeper, harder, her head bobbing as she stroked his length with her mouth, tilting her head so she could reach him better, wanting so badly to drive him crazy. The flat of her tongue slid across him and he grew thicker and longer.

Arya moaned upon hearing Jaqen fight for his breath. "You're making me come, Arya…I want to be inside you now…" He tugged at her hair and took over, moving his hips and fucking her mouth. His guttural rasps and the soft sound of her suckles were the only audible sounds in that empty place.

Her eyes watered as Jaqen kept on thrusting himself into her mouth but she didn't care. There's hardly any time for comfort and mush—only the race for orgasm mattered to the both of them at that moment. And he was so mindless and lost in his own pleasure, so desperate for release…

His length swelled even more and tightened around her lips. They kept going—faster, deeper. She willed her tongue and her mouth to go diabolical on him. He was already at the back of her throat, pushing and grunting and rocking, and Arya wanted all that he has and all that he is.

She felt that sweet burst, tasted it as Jaqen's sex throbbed. His primal groans saturated the whole place. " _Shit, Arya Stark!_ " Still, she went on—stroking him with her hand and her tongue.

When she was sure that he had given her everything, she released him from her mouth and licked him clean.

* * *

 

She was curled up on the bed at her hotel in Cannes, both knees against her chin. The lewd dreams of last night had made her so wet that she almost thought she had pissed on the sheets.

Arya sat up and grabbed a pillow, hugged it tightly. She felt both hollow and aroused upon waking up, and she hated herself for it.

 _A fallen woman_. She felt like one. She might as well be one. All she ever thinks about and dreams about is  _fucking_  Jaqen.

And kissing Jaqen…holding him…feeling his strong body wrapped around her now fragile, broken one…hearing him whisper words of fondness and tenderness,  _love_ …

And hoping somewhere in her subconscious that he was as infatuated, as love-haunted as she is, as bedeviled as she is…

It's been six months since Greece, since Arya had flown from Santorini to Athens and confessed to Aegon about her dalliance with the artist, begged him to release her. "I acted like a whore and it's not fair to you," she had told him. "I don't see any reason for you to still keep me. We should…probably end this."

Aegon the Sixth had said no.

It marveled her how very calmly he handled the situation. His thumb moved to caress her cheek, and he kissed her hair, pulled her close to him and chained her in his arms. "I don't care if you get into a love affair with the whole of London," he had replied. "You're  _mine_. Nothing's going to change that."

"Don't…" she remembered whispering in his chest though she needed very much to sob. "I messed up…"

"You messed up," Aegon growled, tightening his hold of her. His voice broke at the next words and Arya wanted to scream in anguish. "And you will  _not_  do it again. You will not leave me, Arya Stark, do you understand this?""

Aegon's unconditional forgiveness made her feel worse than shit. How could he just let it slip? Which was it, really—was it his deep love for her that led him to such act or his fear that her affair with the artist would reach the ears of those in both their social circles? Was his entire decision—to blame it all on Jaqen and release her from the guilt—for her sake or his?

And why in hell was she even questioning Aegon's reasons? She's a whore who's been granted pardon and she's still being ungrateful—the typical she.

What's even worse is that Aegon had offered to move out of his own penthouse when she said she needed space and some time to figure herself out. "This is  _our_  home and you will stay here," he had told her. "Take as much time as you need and I promise, I'll run to you when you want me."

He had kept that promise.

Silly, silly arrangement, but Aegon slept in another apartment every night and rushed to her every morn so they could have coffee together like they always did before that cursed trip in Santorini. And always, there were flowers, and a new book, and a love note when he couldn't spend the morning with her, and the Richart sweets that she adored. They went out to dinner once a week, and to  _concertos_  twice a month.

There were serenades too, dancing, laughter…

And then, she started missing Aegon, loving him again—this time deeper.

She would always find Shades of Rue staring at her in the empty living room, with its many perplexing strokes and brushworks, the sublime embeds and inlays, the concealed meanings reaching perhaps a thousand and one, the man and his poetic hands behind the mystifying work. Arya would turn her eyes away in response, as if staring back meant looking at those bronze irises against the gold, seeing the red and the white, revealing her most vulnerable soul of souls to that one artist.

Yet, she couldn't remove the painting from the wall.

Six long months, before she decided that she would accept Aegon the Sixth's offer to renew their relationship. There it was, the certainty she needed, locked within the confines of what she had allowed herself to think and do and believe.

Six long months before faith was fully rebuilt between them both, before love and respect were redeemed through a harrowing healing process, until Jaqen ruined everything again.

He had stormed into her office that day, slamming the door open. " _I want you_ ," Jaqen had declared passionately in between fits of breath. He held out both hands as if to explain. "I shouldn't have forced you to stay away. I already told Aegon that I want you, Arya Stark."

With disbelieving eyes, she took him in—busted lip, an ugly cut across his left brow, some bad bruising on his cheekbones. His man-to-man talk with Aegon didn't end well for him, then. And it broke Arya's heart to realize, as her gaze traveled gently across Jaqen's lovely features, that the marks all over his face were brought by cuff rings. Aegon  _never_  owned any cuff rings, but six of his damned bodyguards did.

And she had never seen him so disoriented, so…beautifully lost.

Her lack of response prompted Jaqen in a desperate monologue. He pulled out some folded papers from his back pocket and straightened them out on Arya's table. "I bought a house in Berlin, Arya, a  _real_  house—detached with a garden and the works. You could still write for the paper, or get a recommendation from your chief editor so he would give you a transfer, we can make it work." It was a blur, a string of incoherent pronouncements, unreasonable and utterly mad. "You know what? Screw  _this_ ," Jaqen said, crumpling the ownership papers and hurling them towards the wall. "We could get a house  _anywhere_ you like, and…" he reached for something else in his breastpocket—a red, velour Harry Winston box with a three-set diamond ring. "Shit, baby. I don't know what you want, just tell me if this is okay or if you want another ring or if you even want a ring at all…just please say something." He made a move towards her but stopped when she backed away a couple of steps. "Arya…"

She shook her head, still aghast. "What the hell are you doing?"

He appeared as if he had collided head-on with a truck. He cleared his throat and straightened himself, regaining his lost composure. "Asking you to…be with me."

That's when she had fully surrendered to the truth. The man was too profound beyond words, beyond reason, and she knew that she would never stop plummeting helplessly towards all that he is.

She had  _loved_  him before he had rejected her in Santorini, before he had told her to stay away—there it was, the ugly truth she struggled to bury beneath her unfailing reason. Falling for Jaqen H'ghar again is like falling in love with herself.

It was scarier than the tenth circle of hell.

"Get out," she hissed, confusion and dread, lust and impossible love consuming every bit of her sense. "OUT!" she pointed at the door for emphasis.

He was stubborn that day. Jaqen strode to her and cupped her cheeks with both hands and kissed her temple. "I can give you what you want, we can take back your home. I have money and connections, too—"

A tight slap landed on his face.

"Get the hell out of my office," came her whisper. "Or I swear I'm going to cut your damned hair and kill you."

Jaqen walked away, didn't even bother closing the door behind him.

He left the ring on her table, and the house title scrunched on the floor.

It hadn't helped either that Sabine had laughed at her plight over the phone. "Oh, stop complaining, Arya Stark!" the woman had teased her. "Two filthy rich guys are fighting over you. And they're both lovely. Just toss a coin and be done with it if you can't choose with your eyes open."

"It's not that easy."

"Fine. Who's the better man in bed?"

Arya had laughed hysterically at the remark before hanging up the phone.

And now, she had allowed herself to become a fool once more by running after him.

She dragged herself from the bed and went into the bath.  _Beside Chagall's._ She had googled it and it's close to the hotel.

This was Cannes, and normally, she would go mad over the sandy beaches and the sights, the colorful boats and houses. The harbor is captivating, and she had always wanted to visit the  _Notre-Dame de l'Espérance_ by the southern side. Now, she neither had the time nor the interest in all those.

Arya turned the shower on, let the warm water cascade freely down her body. She slid her fingers down to her sex, her thoughts shifting from Aegon to Jaqen to Aegon, then back to Jaqen.

She closed her eyes and allowed herself to get lost in that hallucination.  _Shit_. She loved the feel of them both against her body. A wicked game to play, yes—but she just could not resist either of them.

Her mind had faded into dullness, and every bit of that moment had become an illusion.

Then, she felt those familiar fingers brushing her wet skin, that familiar voice purring in her ears.

_Arya Stark…_

He pulled her hair and she gasped at the suddenness of it. Her open mouth caught pebbles of cool water from the shower, yet her body, despite the chill, could understand nothing but heat.

His hardness pressed against her naked bottom.

"A-Aegon…"

He responded by fondling her breasts, running his tongue over and over across her shoulder, and the sensation of his touch and kisses and smooth water trickling down her whole form set her ablaze.

He moved his hips and stroked his sex against her. Arya groaned, leaned forward to feel more of him.

Aegon was taking his sweet time with her, and the slow burn of it crawled all over her as he seduced her savagely. His presence alone was enough to send her to fits of orgasm.  _I will burn your loins, Arya Stark, until you can think of nothing but lust for me,_ he whispered.  _I'm not going to stop—not even when you're shaking and screaming._

She gasped as she felt someone else's soft tongue licking the lips of her sex. His strong hands gripped the back of her legs, and in between his lapping was her pet name.

_Lovely girl…_

He suckled and tongued her alternately. Long, leisurely licks. Audible sips. He was so rough and passionate, sending her into one hypnoidal state that was both planned and spontaneous. Suddenly, there was nothing in her world but the wretched storm that was him.

"Jaqen—stop!"

He would have none of it.  _You're so beautiful and fuckable,_ he purred.  _I will hurt you so bad, and drown you, and shatter you with my love till you know of nothing else but me._ As he loved her sex with his mouth, he pulled her into a soul dance of sorts, a never-ending, sinful game of fantasies and desires, stealing her away from what's real.

The placid waters did nothing to still her fire.

And her mouth, her unholy mouth was moaning their names— _Jaqen…and Aegon…and Jaqen…and Aegon—_ and both were all over her, and she didn't know where one ends and the other begins.

Arya leaned against the tiled wall as their faces and the feel of them dissipated from her now conscious mind.

It struck her as very  _odd_ —the fact that you can be in love with two men yet desire to be with only one of them.

 _Yes,_ she realized.  _I do want to be with him._

_Possibly for the rest of my life._

* * *

 

"Does he stay here very often?" Arya asked the attendant. Her gaze roamed around various paintings in that studio which were all under a single collective theme— _Deutsche Mädchen_ —some of them faceless, some of them nude, but the nakedness was subtly concealed by an arm across the breast, or a silken shawl partly covering the sex, or light shadows and splash of hues.

"Rarely now that the  _monsieur's_  wife had passed away," the man replied. "He visits once a year to grace the art gala at the Negresco Riviera."

She once more surveyed the collection of artworks in his expansive studio. Before coming in, she honestly expected a mess of colors or a rainbow crime-scene perhaps, but what she saw were neat displays of expressionistic paintings and  _art nouveau_ , styles clashing with styles, surreal and simple, romantic, tragic, some bizarre, bizarre soliloquies pondering the emptiness of existence—all instruments of love and hate and war and passion, all traces of reality.

_This is Jaqen's world._

Arya loved every bit of it, every bit of  _him_.

"The  _monsieur_  is a really good one, isn't he?" the attendant asked, following Arya's gaze that settled on the painting of a woman whose face was concealed by a mask. The mask did nothing to hide her beauty.  _She looks quite familiar._  It was on oil and gouache, and the colors were the same as that of Shades of Rue.

Arya nodded, then motioned her head towards the art. "Who is this?"

"The wife."

Her heart quickened.

_We have the same eyes._

She averted her gaze from the painting. This was the woman that had caused Jaqen's withdrawal, his brokenness. Arya felt inexplicable emotions building up inside her—intrigue, rage, jealousy. And if only she could, she would haul that woman from the grave she's buried in and make her explain why she killed herself and left him.

With a quick word of thanks to the attendant, she rushed to the end of the hall towards the large room that was his studio.

Slowly, she opened the door and saw him, seated in front of a half-finished painting. To his right was a grand piano with its lid open and its rack carrying some music sheets. He might have been playing before she had entered. Though his back was to her, he still looked irresistible, and if sex was human then perhaps it would take the very form of Jaqen H'ghar—the looks, charm, cunning of it all rolled into one man.

The woman in her throbbed at the sight of him. How could she not want him?

Arya locked the door behind her, removed the French coat she was wearing. There was nothing underneath that coat but a gossamer, silken robe.

"Why are you here?"

The coldness in his greeting made her pause with her steps.

It broke her heart.

Jaqen stood and faced her, cigarette in between his fingers. With uninterested eyes he regarded her, and she thought how worse it was to see him passive than to see him tempestuous.

Yet that very moment, she was reduced to her basest, most instinctive level. She was at her most human, at her strongest and most vulnerable. Arya Stark wanted nothing but to be taken till morning by Jaqen H'ghar.

And more than that, to be  _loved_  by him.

That love she needed, it doesn't have to be for all days. He doesn't have to say anything, or make any more promises. If he wanted to take her with raging, savage force, and  _not_  even look at her face once, then so be it.  _So be it._

"I want you to paint me like one of your German girls, Jaqen."

He scoured her form with a lustful stare and walked over to her.

Arya heard his disparaging chuckles, his words of ' _death is poetry's most favorite subject…_ ' when she told him she wanted to be immortal. She heard him utter Aegon the Sixth's name with repressed yet raging jealousy.

"You wanted me out of your life, didn't you?"

She flinched at the sharpness of those words, but she stood her ground. "We both know that's impossible."

"Very well. Can you afford it—a man's price?" Jaqen asked.

"Name it."

She felt his tongue against the flesh of her shoulder. Then, there was the feel of his teeth grazing her skin gently.

She felt  _all_  of him.

Arya wanted to take him in her arms and never let go.

Jaqen purred.

"You."

She exhaled and closed her eyes, relished the ginger and cloves, those lips that were much like an assassin's—killing her, claiming her life in this universe and in all others, those hands bloodied by paint, the man that owned them.

Jaqen broke away from her and walked over to the divan, settled himself with his legs crossed the manly way.

A lazy half-smile appeared on his face.

"Take off that fucking robe."

She didn't need to be told twice.

Arya unfastened the soft knots that held the robe in place, felt the fabric ease against her body. She let the garment fall softly on the floor, as she tried to contain her shudders. Cool air kissed her bare skin, and Jaqen's hot stares crawled all over her nakedness.

She ached for him  _so_ much, even more so when he spoke in a raspy voice, as if he's struggling to control himself as well, as if his command over his own self is about to break.

"I'm done painting fake faces, Arya Stark."

She swallowed. "What do you mean?"

Jaqen's starving eyes settled on her sex. He licked his lips and exhaled before looking into her eyes. "I'm drawn by some things—by truth, most especially. The most beautiful moments are the spontaneous ones, the genuine ones. Those moments when you wake up disoriented, or when you're daydreaming, when you close your eyes and inhale the wind. I want  _real_  moments of you crying or laughing or hoping, I want to paint you only when you're in love."

Arya smiled at him. "What if I tell you that I  _am_  in love?"

Jaqen smiled back, then stood to retrieve the set of brushes and colors he would use. His hair was unbound, and the strands danced freely across his face, with some being blown leisurely by the winds coming from the studio's balcony. Arya wanted to pull his hair of red and white, move north and south on top of his raw and very strong built.

"You're in love?" He settled himself on his painter's chair and nodded at Arya. "Show me."

As if her feet had goddess-wings, she walked slowly to the ebony settee. Arya felt Jaqen's eyes following her every move, she sensed him counting her every breath, and heard his lips sucking in air for it had gone scarce in that room.

She lay on the divan.

Arya brushed the strands of hair away from her eyes, settled her right arm up close to her forehead. She opened her legs, found an erotic albeit comfortable position, then allowed her left hand to reach down for her moist sex.

She looked only at Jaqen as she began touching herself like she did in the bath. His words echoed in the walls of her mind.

_I want to paint you only when you're in love._

She flicked her core gently, then gasped as insane pleasure coursed through her flesh and veins. Slowly, gently, she stroked herself, letting her wetness aid her in her own craft, flirting with thoughts of him touching her, taking her. Not once— _not once_  did her gaze leave Jaqen's face.

The artist smiled, his lovely eyes blazed with lust and something deeper. "You're so beautiful, Arya."

She inhaled deeply, and closed her eyes for a couple of seconds, then went back to staring at him. She was already panting. "Is this real enough for you, Jaqen H'ghar?"

"Not quite," he purred, rubbing the shaft of his brush across his lower lip. He bit the tip for a second in an effort to hold sway over himself. "Tilt your head down…your hair, brush it back…that's it. Don't cover your breasts, sweetheart. Open your legs a bit more. Smile a little…very good. Fuck, you're driving me crazy…"

Arya pushed her fingers deeper into herself, rubbing faster. "Paint me now, Jaqen…"

He blew air from his mouth, as his eyes traveled from the object to the canvas to the object. He ran his fingers across his hair, studied the colors for a bit, mixed them, then waved the brush in the air, as if tracing her outlines, forms. He dipped his angled brush into the hues and ran it across the palette before doing his basecoats all over the white canvas. The artist's eyes narrowed in concentration, and there was something about the way he studied her and moved his hands and performed his strokeworks and blendings that made Arya laugh softly.

He grinned. "Let me do my work."

"You're sexy."

"You're sexier."

The whole time, he looked at her as if she's the only thing that existed in the world.

Jaqen used both hands—his right for surface and his left for structure, both playing with textures and shades in every stroke. The bristles moved against the canvas and the gentle sound of scraping made Arya's skin crawl. She whimpered.

"Where are you now?" she whispered her query.

"Edges, feathering," he replied, full focus on the object that was her and the art that will be her.

"I mean, which zones?" she asked coyly.

He smiled softly as he carried on with the washes. "Your woman's zones."

"Oh," Arya replied, a hint of cruel tease in her voice. "How miserable you must be feeling right now…"

Jaqen chuckled, unmindful of the white strands that fell over his eyes. "Yes. I want to fuck you already."

"Won't you tickle me first with your flatbrush?" she flirted, catching her own breath.

"Hell no," he replied, then hissed as he thickened the shades. "I'll use the pointed-round for your fine details and lines. I'll make you lose your voice."

Even as she was trembling all over with their pillowtalk, she continued teasing him. "I'm going to come."

"Hold it, baby. I'm almost done."

"Fuck me now, Jaqen…I'm about to lose it…please…"

"Just a second."

"Jaqen!"

He chuckled richly. The throaty sound of it flowed over Arya's naked body like waterfall.  _Whenever he laughs…_  she thought,  _he becomes less of a Norse god and more real—like, flesh-and-blood real._

"Y-you're cruel," she gasped. "I'm already aching for you…"

He smirked wickedly but kept his attention to his work. "As am I."

Searing pleasure continued to pulse through her.

Colors exploded all over Arya as she reached the heights of orgasm, and fell.

* * *

 

_Arya Stark._

Her face as she climaxed was dreamy. There it was—the spontaneity in her visage which he was dying to see and paint and remember for all his days. It was her instinct taking over reason, the uncontrolled defeating her rule over the self, the flawlessness within the flaws, the heart over the brain.

Jaqen wanted to touch her in a place the hands couldn't reach.

_Göttin mir…_

The intensity of that single moment overwhelmed him. He captured all—her misty eyes, her lips moaning out his name, her quivering naked body, the details in that very act, the rush of lust and love.

He painted everything on canvas.

_Goddess mine…_

And the artist in him witnessed her, watched her with awe like a voyager would the stars and the moon. He wandered and wondered, but he would no longer, because he had found her.

He shouldn't count the number of days he had known her, the number of ardent stares and passionate kisses, the fights and reconciliations. They had absolutely no history with each other, but it didn't matter. What is time anyway, but an illusion? All that there is, is  _this_.

Jaqen finished the last of his brushworks and rushed to respond to her desperate groans.

"Hush, sweetheart. I've got you…" he said as he kissed her temple, nose, lips. He parted her legs once more and rubbed her clit with the pad of his thumb. He felt her core tighten with his touch and his own length swelling in response.

Arya was so pink down there, so swollen and sensitive. Even as she was begging for him to pause with his strokes because she just came, he couldn't help himself. His tongue touched her nub, fluttered over it, then covered the wholeness of her feminine slit, teasing her and leading her to another orgasm. He sipped her saccharine woman's nectar.  _Damn_ , she tasted sweet.

Jaqen speared her sex with his tongue and slid a finger inside her. He sucked her clit softly, then savagely. He knew it would hurt her just a little, but what to do? He wanted her so much.

She trembled, her softness tightening with his every lick and tongue-stroke. His heart leaped with masculine triumph as her shudders went violent, as she climaxed again, as she screamed hoarsely—there was his name once more…and once more on her lips…and _I love you, I love you, I love you._

He moved to kiss her belly and her bosoms and her neck, soothing her.

"I love you too, Arya…"

She sat up and locked him in the tightest embrace.

He chained her in his arms, too, and like an enraptured madman from knightly tales of old, vowed to do everything so she wouldn't leave.

They spent the next two hours staring at the art, kissing, talking, laughing.

Jaqen had never been happier.

* * *

 

They pleasured each other until the peak of night.

"I should be sleeping right now," Jaqen murmured, nipping Arya's ear. They were both lying on the divan, his leg draped over her hip. He fondled her breasts. "I have to be at the Riviera at seven in the evening tomorrow."

"We can sleep here in your lavish manse all day to get you ready for tomorrow evening," Arya murmured back, guiding Jaqen's hand towards her sex. "When are you going to fuck me, Jaqen?"

He chuckled. "I just made you climax three times, Arya."

She shifted her position so she could face him. She kissed Jaqen's nose. "Yes, but that's with your hands and your tongue. What about with your cock?"

Jaqen laughed richly. "You're too insatiable!"

"I want to fuck you, Jaqen."

He smiled and kissed her temple. "Nothing about you is meant to be rushed, Arya."

She reached out for his hardness beneath the trousers and stroked it, rubbing the cap that was already wet with his pre-cum. Arya spoke against Jaqen's groaning lips. "What if we have to rush things because we can't be sure about what happens tomorrow?"

Even as he wanted to flinch at those words, he contained himself. "Tomorrow, you will come with me to the masquerade at the Negresco. After that, I'll fuck the shit out of you."

"Oh, a date."

"Yes. And one serious lovemaking engagement afterwards."

"Play something for me, Jaqen."

He looked at her.  _Really_  looked. Maybe she was only humoring him—surely she wouldn't ask him to play?

But she was already sitting up, and her eyes were on the grand piano with its lid wide open, inviting.

Arya stood and wore her robe, then walked towards the piano, ran her fingers along its smooth bars and braces. She could see her body reflected in the polished surface of the wood. Gently, she pressed one of the keys, then another, then another. Soft melody echoed across the walls of that studio, bringing life to Jaqen's otherwise unbreathing art.

She whirled and faced him, a childlike smile on her lips. "Please."

Jaqen exhaled. "Arya…"

" _If music be the food of love…_ " she began, running her forefinger across the hinges. Jaqen swallowed and licked his lips. " _…play on. Give me excess of it; that surfeiting, the appetite may sicken, and so die_."

The artist smiled. "I haven't played since—"

"I know," she cut him.  _Since my wife died,_ he was about to say, and she  _did_  know that. "But I really want to hear you play, Jaqen. For  _me_."

They gazed at each other, and in the silence willed the other one to give up.

An irritated sigh came from him as he stood from the divan in surrender to her whims. "Oh, gods."

Arya clapped girlishly and settled herself on the bench. "Sit beside me."

He obeyed, tested the pedals and the keys.  _Clink, clink, clink._ He hit the high octaves. "Bach?"

"You're too  _angsty_ ," she replied, brushing his hair with her fingers and kissing his cheek. "Beethoven Opera 50 in F."

He smiled. "You're too  _romantic_ ," he said. "And demanding."

"I'm a paying client, Jaqen H'ghar."

Jaqen laughed. "Fine. [Opera 50 in F](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gpiOC4SCVg), it is."

He began playing.

And she found herself lost in the music, as the notes and rhythms danced, calling to her in a wakeful dream.

She saw his ambidexterity while hitting the keys, and he played like he was making love to her. It wasn't hard to imagine the grand piano as herself, as he teased the higher notes with gentle taps of his fingers, then with intensity, struck the lower octaves. Perfect transitions, perfect cadence.

It was mesmerizing. It was a trance she never wished to end, and she found herself closing her eyes and swaying her head as the music went on…lost in that lovely pianoforte, lost in him.

And now, witnessing him play for her like one dreamer of dreams made it utterly impossible for her longing heart to be silent. Everything about her was suddenly alive, everything was dancing.

Even when he stopped playing, she still kept her eyes closed, hummed the melodies.

And if not for his kiss on her cheek, she wouldn't know that the music had ceased.

"Three years," Jaqen whispered. "Three years since I last played that piece."

She held his hand and traced soft patterns on his arm, gazed at him fondly. "What was her name?"

Jaqen smiled sadly and shook his head.

"Please, Jaqen…"

He exhaled in resignation. "She has many names. She was a theatre actress after all, a musician, too. She would become No One onstage, but behind her face were those which she used to call herself—Weasel, Nan, Cat of the Canals, Blind Beth, Mercedene, The Winter Maiden—roles and masks, deceptions…"

"What was her  _true_  name?" Arya asked softly.

Jaqen gazed at her and kissed her cheek again. " _Nȳhmēria_."

Arya smiled. "Like the warrior queen?"

"Like the warrior queen."

She rose and sat on Jaqen's lap, coiled her arms around his neck. Jaqen held her close, his fingers caressing her back. "I'm so proud of you, Jaqen. For…fighting for the love you had for her."

"I fight for the ones I want," Jaqen murmured against Arya's throat. "I intend to do it again. For  _this_."

She kissed his temple and inhaled the scent of his hair. "I know. And I shall do the same."

* * *

 

It's been three days since that lovely masquerade and the underground art spree.

She held her phone tighter as her cab stopped at the  _La Croisette_. The two-kilometer stretch of coastline was visible from the hotel and was the loveliest she had seen in months, yet she couldn't bring herself to enjoy it.

Arya looked at the text message before going up the steps that led to the lobby.

_Le Cercle. Nine o'clock._

Straightforward, ominous. Her time had run out.

Aegon is here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you missed it: 
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> [Jaqen's pianoforte](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gpiOC4SCVg)


	5. The Riviera

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ['She said, where'd you wanna go? How much you wanna risk?': Dancing at the Merz](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM7MFYoylVs)
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> Note: Some weirdness in this chapter.  
> Thanks for the comments and kudos, lovely people. :)

 

She looked at herself in the mirror and wondered why she did not object to wearing a gown for the masquerade at the Negresco.

Not that Jaqen was that persuasive, and not that she can be persuaded that easily. Arya used to go to lengths to make Aegon the Sixth understand that she hated evening dresses. During social functions, she would always wear her woman's tux and heeled boots. But she couldn't resist slipping into that fancy frock when Jaqen returned to the manse that afternoon carrying the box, boyish grin and all.

It was an elegant Victor Edelstein black with scattered glitters, clinging to her contours from chest to knee then flaring out to the hem at her feet, its slit running from her thigh all the way down. The neckline is in the style of Queen Anne. Its charmeuse fabric made her feel as if she was wearing nothing at all—the same feeling she has whenever Jaqen's eyes were on her.

And how the man had learned the proportions of her body, her figures and aspects, for him to have a gown made that fits her perfectly, she didn't anymore ask. Her cheeks blushed at the thought—how Jaqen had memorized every bit of her like an artist who knows his craft even when blindfolded.

Arya started towards the staircase.

She didn't know what to expect at the masquerade, and she didn't care. Arya just wanted to dance with Jaqen till her knees give out, till the clock strikes twelve and one or two and  _no_ , she will not run away in the night should that happen. She will laugh with him as he waltzes with her, hold him, listen to him as he whispers splendid things in her ear, kiss him…

There he was, at the foot of the stairs.

He stared at her like he wanted to summon the moon and make love to her there, paint her in breathlessness, make music out of her moans.

"Fuck," Jaqen exhaled, his magnetic eyes scouring every part of her.

Arya laughed as she descended. It was an effort not to fall—Jaqen was so beautiful. "Fuck?"

He blinked. "I-I'm sorry. I mean…" he shook his head and grinned. "You're so exquisite and ravishing and I was thinking…"

She held out her hand to him and he kissed the back of it. "Thinking what?"

"That I want you on my lap," he said, pulling her to him. His lips grazed her cheek and she felt the need to touch all of him all at once. "I want you on my face…against the wall…beneath me and on top of me…"

"T-the masquerade," Arya's breath caught in her throat as Jaqen licked her neck.

"Maybe we should just stay here," he murmured against her skin. "All I want right now is to watch you take off that gown while I stroke my cock."

"Jaqen…"

"Maybe I should just stop being so afraid and fuck you and spill myself on the covers  _or_ …spill myself inside you." He pressed himself harder against her, and Arya felt his sex throb against hers— _really_  throb. "Would you want that, Arya? Would you want me to leave my mark on you? Put babies in your belly?"

She responded by kissing him torridly.

It was an effort to break away, and even inside the limo that would bring them to the gala, their hands and lips were all over each other.

"I-I'm so sorry," Arya muttered as she vigorously scrubbed Jaqen's pants with her handkerchief. She wanted to amuse herself since the Negresco was half an hour away, and so she had unzipped him a little and licked him. Now, his pants were stained with his own man-seed and they only had champagne and ice to fix the suit she had ruined. "I'll get this off, just hold still…"

"It's okay, Arya," Jaqen said, watching her clean the mess. His head was thrown back in the limo seat, his face flushed and his irises gleaming in post-orgasm. "The coat will cover that, don't trouble yourself." He clicked his tongue upon noticing that torn part in Arya's neckline. He ran a finger through it. "Seems like I ruined your dress, too. I must have yanked it earlier."

"I'm not so sure about that," Arya teased him. "It was my hair you were tugging at a while ago. But that's fine—I'll wear it loose."

They stopped at the hotel, and she tried not to beg Jaqen to take her back to his manse when she saw what awaits them.

_This is the art gala?_

There were beautiful men and women getting off of Bugati cars and Aston Martins. It was all glamour and sparkle—gowns, suits, and masks all. And if Arya Stark didn't know better, she would think this was taken straight from the pages of a Hollywood magazine.

As if sensing her perturbations, Jaqen squeezed her hand reassuringly. He was already wearing his mask of ebony and gold. "Ready?"

She slipped on her own of silver against the white.

As soon as they both stepped out of the limo, photographers rushed to them and began clicking away. Arya shielded her eyes from the blinding flash of cam lights, then backed a couple of steps. It was all blur and sophisticated mess, those calls from photographers and print inquirers— _'Jaqen, here!', 'Who's the lovely one, Jaqen?'_ —the glitz all over, the craned necks and stares that ranged from curious to judging to stunned. By instinct, she tugged at Jaqen's arm.

"Just walk, sweetheart," he purred in her ears calmly, and despite herself, Arya marveled at how very used Jaqen was to this. "They just need a few photos for  _Aesthetica_  and the Metronome."

"This will be in the art mags?!" Arya exclaimed, alarmed.

Jaqen smiled. "Why, of course." He led her towards the giant glass doors of the Negresco, then to the grand ballroom with Victorian pillars and ceiling paintings, nodding occasionally at his high-browed acquaintances. The night was almost a dream, and it might have been her imagination toying with her, but Arya could swear that she could hear gasps and faint whispers as they walked, as if her very presence stirred inexplicable shock in that gala.

They were staring at Jaqen…

But their stares lingered on  _her_.

"Is this how you virtuosos welcome your guests?" Arya teased him to hide her unease. She had never walked into a room where all attention was on her. But she kept her back straight, eyes seeing everything and nothing, lips with a soft smile—for politeness' sake. "Gawk at them like they're some type of naked art? I wonder if they know that it's far from mannerly to stare too much."

He chuckled quietly, leading her to the seats at the front, a good distance from the orchestra. Jaqen kissed her on the lips, and lingered there even as he spoke. "Ignore them. You're just too lovely, that's all."

"They definitely don't look like they're thinking that. Their stares are a little…strange."

"Hey," Jaqen lifted her chin so she could look at him. His tone was reassuring. "It's just this, Arya Stark—I've never brought anyone with me in this particular gala for three straight years. They would see me with my lady friends at other functions, but not with anyone  _here_  at the Riviera." He kissed her again, unmindful of what others would think or say—not that kissing is a thing verboten in that place. "They're just a little…intrigued."

"And pray, how would I be introduced?" Arya asked as she fixed Jaqen's bow.

"You're the woman I love."

It's the oldest sentence in the book, yet the way he said it gave it a whole new meaning for her.  _The woman I love—_ Arya wanted to take off her shoes and do pirouettes, scream like fireworks, get lost in the wind and the moments where there was only him.

She curled her toes and bit her lip. Isn't she too old for girlish thrills?

"Smooth," was all she managed to say as she tipped the champagne glass to her lips.

A stunning, ebony-skinned woman approached them. Arya's eyes widened at the perfect physique, the long lashes behind the mask, the resplendence—this woman was even more beautiful in person. She reached them, and Arya gasped as the woman planted a firm kiss on the artist's lips.

"Jaqen, darling," the woman said, her tone silken and provocative. She slightly scraped her long, manicured nails across the artist's cheek. "My naughty, naughty man. For countless days, I only stared at my phone, not a single ring, not a single message from you." She thrice-clicked her tongue. "You,  _bad_  boy."

The man only chuckled. "Arya, this is Bellegere. Belle— _my_  Arya."

"A pleasure," Arya rose and extended her hand. She knew Jaqen's relations with the model, but that is a thing of the past now, made clear by Jaqen's pronouncements.

Bellegere turned to her as if she just noticed her, then accepted her hand rather reluctantly. The woman's eyes narrowed in assessment of Arya. But there was something else in Bellegere's eyes.  _Horror_ —yes that's it. Horror that she immediately concealed beneath a layer of false confidence and a feral, gorgeous smile.

"She's lovely, Jaqen, darling," the woman remarked, running her forefinger across the skin between Arya's breasts. Arya cringed. "Oh, gods…if only I were a man. But I suppose we can make it work—three's hardly a crowd. Arya will take north of you, I'll take south. I'll do my sensual interludes and get her wet, prep her for you while you watch, then we'll cap it off with me on top of her, breast to breast, then you do your thrusts—me, then her, then me…"

"No, thank you." Arya was quick to reply. Bellegere was too forward. Mere minutes of meeting each other and already, sexual innuendos and toss and turns among the three of them on Jaqen's bed were rolling off of her tongue like simple weather talk. "Jaqen and I are fine, I think."

She smiled, then kissed Arya's cheek. "Would you excuse us, sweetheart?" And without waiting for Arya's response, began speaking with Jaqen in another tongue.

" _Planst du dich uzumbringen_?" she asked the artist in a sharp tone.

_Do you plan to kill yourself?_

Jaqen only smirked. " _Worüber redest du?_ "

_What are you talking about?_

Arya kept her mouth shut to show some decency, even as their voices went higher, the words piercing. The exchange intensified, but Arya pretended to busy herself with her surroundings, smiling at the people who were walking past them and gawking at her.

Bellegere threw her an ambiguous glance, then went back to berating Jaqen. " _Es ist drei jahre, Jaqen. Und sie ist die frau von Aegon—diese Stark!_ "

She didn't have to ask them about the subject of their suddenly sour discussion.

Bellegere was rebuking Jaqen for taking her in— _Aegon's woman._ As if such an act spelled hell and catastrophe.

"This conversation is over, Bellegere."

Jaqen's voice was foreboding. One more word, and Bellegere Otherys would regret ever coming over to their table.

The woman scoffed then stood. "Be careful, Jaqen. You're playing a lethal game here," she warned him, then turned her attention towards Arya. She sighed, looked at her with eyes of sincere pity, sadness. "It's true. You share the same face with  _her_." Without another glance, she strode to the ballroom's other end.

"What was that about?" Arya asked Jaqen calmly, taking a sip of her champagne. He was still in his usual composed, cultured self, yet his eyes were blazing.

"Nothing."

"Doesn't sound like it."

He reached for her hands and squeezed them, searched for her eyes. "Do you trust me, Arya?"

Her brows furrowed at the question.  _Trust?_ She can talk about love for him till blush of day, but trust—how, when she knew very little about him?

_Souls live in infinities…_

She smiled. "Of course, I trust you."

Jaqen exhaled in relief. "Very good." Then, he grabbed her nape and kissed her so torridly, so deeply till her mind went blank, till she forgot whose air she was breathing. "It's only you and me, you understand?"

She nodded.

But the questions kept pouring in.

The whole night at the Negresco didn't go well for her.

After the auctions and speeches on philosophies of art and charity work, Jaqen was all over the place, with her at his side, engaged in long talks about his works. Some of them were art collectors, gallery owners, curators, fellow artists. They talked about styles and decadence, some Pre-Raphaelite pieces,  _cadavre exquis_ , the avant-garde  _Der Blaue Reiter_ , formlessness, and endless other art jargons, and though Arya was a brainy Cantabrigian, she could understand almost nothing but feminist art and sculptures.

Jaqen always included her in the discussions, and she didn't know whether to laugh or to feel insulted that he was taking the effort to explain everything to her in layman's.

Worse than the faint feelings of uncertainty, the iota of sense that she was in the wrong place,  _worse_  than these was how those people in Jaqen H'ghar's circle seemed to regard her—as if she didn't belong there, or  _anywhere_  altogether, as if she came from the otherworld or so.

"Ah, but the  _resemblance_ ," one of the men said, his eyes riveted at Arya's masked face. His wife was quick to elbow him on the side. The man cleared his throat, but could not stop at all. "Forgive me, Jaqen, but this is Persistence of Memory, like I'm caught in a dream where Nȳhmēria is still alive—"

"Tycho!" his wife admonished him.

Jaqen only stared at the banker with narrowed eyes.

 _I'm tired of this—_ she's exhausted of being gawked at, of being compared to some other woman who was once a part of the artist's life, as if she does not possess an existence of her own. She's tired of these people who wanted nothing but to confirm that even after three years, Jaqen was still a broken man.

And perhaps she did have the same physique as that dead woman, or mannerisms; but with her mask on, how could they even remark about any real resemblance between them?

"That's what people used to say about Braque and Picasso—their works looked the  _same_. People see what they choose to see, the eyes deceive and light and space manipulate," Arya said, smiling only with her lips. "But their visions are  _different_ , their styles are  _different_. Georges is  _not_  Pablo. And perhaps you should accept this—Nȳhmēria is dead and I, Arya Stark, am alive. She killed herself and I am the one with Jaqen H'ghar now."

The banker paled at her bold words. No one has spoken openly about the artist's dead wife so brazenly before, for fear that she might wake up from the lair of the dead and haunt them all.

In the corner of her eye, she could see Jaqen smiling proudly at her.

A clap. Two. Three.

"But she does speak like Nȳhmēria, doesn't she?"

Arya turned her attention to that deep voice, fighting her urge not to slaughter the source then and there.

A man—flowing silver hair. He was not handsome or beautiful. The words would not do him justice at all.

He was devastating.

And Arya had realized, if Jaqen is a Norse god, this man is a Greek god. And despite her fury at having been compared once more to Jaqen's dead wife, Arya suddenly understood why the woman had fallen for this other man. Even more so when the man removed his ebony mask.

He walked with regal finesse she never thought was possible for a human being. When he reached them both, he looked at Arya like a dragon would a naked woman it wanted to devour.

Jaqen appeared as if he was about to set Hades loose in that place.

"In which grave did you dig this one up, Jaqen?" the man asked, raking Arya's form with a lusty stare.

It was Aurion.

* * *

 

Jaqen wanted to rip the man's throat open with his bare hands, carve out an ugly hole in his chest, yank his beating heart out, flay him alive, relish his anguished screams…

He was flushed with raw rage, with such venomous loathing; and there was something demoniac about him upon laying eyes on Aurion Archestrad that made the crowd disperse a bit, though some lingered at a safe distance. This was just too good to miss.

_This is the man Nȳhmēria had loved…the man who took everything yet is still not sated._

And perhaps Jaqen had made the biggest mistake of bringing Arya with him in this gala. Despite the presence of an absolutely striking woman with him, Aurion's penetrating gaze was on Arya and Arya alone, as if she was one amorphous art that had come to life and developed a form, and if she was indeed Jaqen's, then Aurion must have her no matter the cost.

"My, my…" Aurion purred smoothly, licking his lips and hissing, taking in everything about Arya Stark. A low, sensational chuckle came from him. Jaqen noticed Arya wince a little at the sound. "I haven't been seduced in quite a while, not like  _this_. I feel like I'm about to explode."

"Why are you here, Archestrad?" Jaqen asked, a hint of hell in his voice. He took a step to shield Arya from the man, and they now stood face to face. Tension seeped through every particle of air, as did anxiety and brewing menace. Jaqen heard some remarks at his left— _'Olympus against Asgard…'_ —and he realized that these supposedly high-browed, genteel people of art all over them were no doubt anticipating one epic and sophisticated version of a barfight.

They might get what they're wishing for. Jaqen H'ghar wanted to tear Aurion Archestrad into bloody ribbons.

Aurion motioned to the entire place with elegant flicks of his hand. "I  _am_  art incarnate—of course, I'll be here, Jaqen H'ghar." He chuckled and shook his head, as if forcing Jaqen to give up that calm. "I sense bitterness in you. I hope I'm wrong. It's been three wonderful years and I've missed you."

"I thought you were banned from all functions," Jaqen smirked, fighting the urge to clench his teeth. "How's your case? Have you managed to prove the court wrong about you faking classics and stealing the originals from museums?"

Low, scattered laughter erupted in the hall.

Aurion laughed too, and his was sensuously terrifying. "They overestimate me, for them to think that I can manage to fake and steal the Mona Lisa. I'm not even a fan of the work." He smirked back at Jaqen. "And how's your  _dead_  wife?"

Gasps and murmurs. Everyone knew that this is going to be, plain and simple,  _war_.

"Fuck you," was Jaqen's reply, his lips still curled in a cruel half-smile.

Aurion clicked his tongue in mock disappointment. "And here, I thought Nȳhmēria had taught you some manners before she hanged herself. Ah, but let's forget about her for a while, eh?" His lewd gaze traveled once more to Arya. "Who's this inviting Venus?"

"Just someone who's none of your damned business," Arya spat. "Someone who doesn't give a fuck about you, either."

Aurion's eyes lit up at Arya's reply. "Hot-blooded, this one. Oh, I am  _so_  in love already."

"When was the last time you've shut up?" Arya carried on. "I've known you only for a few minutes and I'm already disgusted with you."

The man bared his teeth—not out of anger.  _Gods, he's so sick_ , Jaqen thought.  _Arya's sharp tongue is arousing him._

As if confirming his suspicions, Aurion leaned closer to Jaqen and whispered in his ear. " _Opoú tin vríkate?Me diegeirei_ , Jaqen…"

_Where did you find her? Ah, she's making me so hard, Jaqen…_

Jaqen gritted his teeth. "Get out of this hall, or I promise I will slaughter every last inch of you."

But Aurion was already walking away with his woman. " _Merz_ , ten o'clock." He said over his shoulder. "Unless you still don't have the balls."

Jaqen clenched his fists as he watched Aurion saunter off the grand hall. It was another challenge—something he wasn't sure he was prepared to face.

* * *

 

" _Merz_?"

"We're not going."

"Oh, yes. We are."

"Do you even know what that place is?"

Jaqen was tugging Arya's hand and leading her to the waiting limo. Arya sighed. "I don't, Jaqen. And I expect you to explain to me what Aurion's challenge is about."

"Just a stupid art showdown in a lavish underground venue. They practice all kinds of art in there." He opened the door and ushered her in, ignoring the sudden flicker of excitement in her eyes.

"Art showdown?! Oh, we're definitely going!" Arya exclaimed. "I want to get in your world. No doubt you can beat him in whatever challenge—you're practically a  _god_  in your craft."

He looked at Arya and smiled, ran his thumb across her cheeks. He kissed her. "I haven't done  _it_  before. It's the one thing I've never allowed myself to do."

"Let me guess," she replied, slightly irritated. "Your beloved Nȳhmēria thought it's beneath your  _savoir vivre_? I thought any form of art is beautiful. Your collection of naked women in your manse is proof of that."

Jaqen laughed richly. "Arya Stark!"

She scoffed. "It's true! And I want to see Aurion lose it when he sees your genius." She said. "Now, tell me what that longstanding dare is about."

He was quiet for a few minutes, as if weighing his choices. "There's this work that I absolutely love—'Phoenix Rising' by Syl Verberk. Are you familiar with it?"

Arya smiled excitedly. Of course, she was familiar with it. There is no shortage of sensationalist art forms in Pörtschach am Wöthersee when she visited Austria with Aegon the Sixth.

"Even if I do accept Aurion's dare, I would need an object," Jaqen continued. "And no one in his or her right mind would do it with me—the art folks at the  _Merz_  practically revere that sick bastard for all eternity."

"I'll do it," Arya declared. "I'll be your object."

"No."

"Yes!"

"You will not shame yourself in that way, Arya. It's nothing but folly."

She pressed a finger to his lips to silence him. "No, Jaqen. It's not," she whispered, running her index finger across the line of his mouth, teasing. "I want sexless foreplay with you tonight. I want to live in flames and feel my skin crawl and my bones ache for you. I want to feel good. I want your living art on my skin. I want  _you_  on my skin, Jaqen H'ghar."

Jaqen sucked in air. His breathing had gone spasmodic, like he could not get enough of this. Arya smiled seductively, and she felt her nipples harden at what awaits them at the  _Merz_. It will be wild, a whole carnal exhibition, a betrayal of the soul, escapism.

More than this, Arya was sure as she looked at those lovely eyes of his, more than this, it will be absolutely beautiful.

"Your body is sin, Arya Stark," Jaqen murmured, biting her finger gently.

"Yes," she replied softly. "And you will be a sinner tonight, Jaqen H'ghar."

* * *

 

She must be truly, truly mad to demand such a thing from the artist.

Arya will be Jaqen's canvas for that night, because Aurion Archestrad had challenged him to an art showdown of body painting.

The  _Merz_ was not at all what she thought it would be. She was expecting a less snobbish version of The  _Louvre_ , with pillars and arches and some paintings hung on the wall, people in semi-formal suits and banalities akin to 'treason of the artist' and 'intellectual pains'.

It was far from that.

The  _Merz_ was one mischievous gods-lair, full of life, colors, and passion. Like Moulin Rouge, it was smoke and neon, a splash of shades on the stone walls, drapes bursting with hues, hanging lights, elegant skydancers, and a grand stage with paint drums and dancing.

Parties thrown by Gatsby will pale in comparison.

"This is so awesome!" Arya exclaimed, spreading both arms, lost in the lights and music. "I love it!"

Jaqen laughed, spun Arya in one graceful move. "I'm glad you're enjoying this better than the gala."

She roamed her eyes around, taking in the sights and smell. It was overwhelming, like those surreal paintings at the Cube. Arya ran to the center where the crowd converged to either beat paint drums or dance, didn't care one bit if her gown would catch rainbows all over. "Come, Jaqen!" she called to him. "Come!"

"Arya!" Jaqen called back. "Let's just stay at the sides. There are alcoves there."

But Chainsmokers and Coldplay were playing, meshing with the statics of percussive and splatter of chromes. Arya whirled around to face the artist, held out her hand. "Dance with me, Jaqen."

_Achilles and his gold, Hercules and his gifts…_

Jaqen hated dancing, but he couldn't help it but reach out to her and surrender to her caprice, just because of that childlike hope in her eyes and the music that was too bewitching.

He held her closer, allowing the heats of their bodies to merge, lost in each other in the middle of the crowd.

The music was electrifying, with undercurrents of sex in between the beats. They danced, the shafts of neon lights hitting their laughing faces, and they moved like poems at first—there were grace and dreaming with their feet, a quickening reworded by their moving bodies like rare language, swaying in their own rhythms.

The music shifted to sexy synth-pop, and they moved with it.

He marveled at how Arya danced like dangerous flame against his body. Her back was pressed to his chest, and she swayed her hips like a seductive dominatrix, pressing her ass against Jaqen's hard sex. She was powerful and simply hard to contain, with her mouth slightly open like that as if breathing his air, her head thrown back, her entire body writhing sexily as the music pulled them towards each other. Jaqen could do nothing but get lost with her in a place where there's only them, gripping her hips tightly and burying his face in her neck, kissing and licking it while he moved sensually against her ass.

It was just so strange…and special.

"Shit, you're so hot," Jaqen purred in Arya's ears. He nipped her lobe gently. She only laughed and turned to face him, rolling her hips and grinding against him, their movements simultaneous, lusty. Appreciative hoots came from those who were on the dance floor—the men, especially—when Arya dropped it low and danced with her inviting eyes still on Jaqen's face, her slit revealing the flesh of her smooth thighs. "Who taught you how to dance like that?"

"No one," Arya said with a grin as she rose and planted a kiss on Jaqen's cheek. "Just…I feel like my blood is water, my skin is dust blown by the wind when I'm with you."

He lifted her, and by instinct, both of her legs wrapped themselves around his waist. And they laughed and kissed, until the people all over them vanished, until the only ones they could see were each other.

The music stopped.

Arya's head whipped towards the stage and saw him there—Aurion Archestrad, smirking like one numen worshipped by the sons of Monet.

Beside him was his woman, naked from head to toe, unabashed and seemingly reveling at the fact that all eyes were on her bare mounds and sex.

Aurion's voice was calm, taunting. Yet it boomed like thunder in that place.

"Enough of your boyish foolishness, Jaqen H'ghar," he said, then spread both arms gracefully as if they were wings. "Let's do some  _real_  art."

* * *

 

Jaqen clenched his teeth and gripped Arya's wrist tightly. He would not let her fall prey to Aurion's trap. "Let's get out of here."

But she would have none of it. Gently, she yanked her hand from Jaqen's grasp and lifted her chin, her blazing eyes trained on Aurion. "No. Defile me all over with your paint, Jaqen."

And then with so much ease, she slipped off of her gown.

Arya Stark stood there, in front of all art critiques and lovers alike, in her silk undergarments.

Despite his utter disapproval of this display of hers, Jaqen felt himself grow hard, throb painfully for her. His mind might deny it, but his flesh will not—ever. The awed stares of those men and women in their art circle stood as testaments to how beautiful his woman is. He could almost taste her and feel her, can almost see the living art etched in the deepest pores of her skin, his life's work. Gods above, he wanted to love her so hard in the midst of all these damned people.

But there was the fear, too. The fear of novelty, of risks, of her woman's body that was susceptible to both pleasure and pain.

"You don't have to do this, Arya," Jaqen said. "I've nothing to prove to this man, neither do you."

He felt her fingertips across his cheeks, her lips against the side of his mouth. "It's not about proving yourself to anyone," she said, tilting her head to look in his eyes. "It's about sating ourselves, even for mere moments. I'm burning for you and I want  _this_ , if only to feel you more. I need you to love me the way an artist loves his own art, as if it were a part of himself. And I need you to own this, I need you to just be…free."

He smiled softly. "Are you sure?"

"Sure as hell."

They walked to the dais, where an array of oil and brushes was already set. There was nothing but total silence and bated breaths, eyes ready for this feast of visions.

Aurion stood beside his woman, his lip still tipped up in an arrogant smirk. Two words came out of him, breaking the stillness. "Starry Night."

Mad cheers and applause erupted in that place. This is going to be one hell of an art showdown.

Jaqen was smiling softly, even as he wanted to roar in rage and incinerate the  _Merz_ and everyone in it. Aurion was mocking him—'Starry Night' is Nȳhmēria's favorite art piece. He recalled how his late wife would always point at the Moon in its waning gibbous and the stars in expressionistic swirls. ' _I wish to fly there, Jaqen_ ,' she used to say, used to point at the night sky. ' _Do you promise to take me there?_ '

As if sensing Jaqen's sorrow, Aurion spoke. "What's the matter, Jaqen H'ghar? Scared as hell that you've lost your style?" He chuckled softly as he picked up  _four_  different brushes and toyed with them in between his fingers. Jaqen was not surprised, Aurion could use those four brushes  _simultaneously_ , and what with the complex art they'll be recreating, a collection of bristles is really needed. "But who's to say you've always had it in you in the first place? I've seen dogs with more style than some men."

Jaqen surveyed the table where the colors were set. He threw Aurion a nasty glance and a sneer. "Just shut up and let your hands do the talking."

Jaqen picked up the glass containers of oil and liquid latex, paint metallics and neon shades. He licked his lips and drew in air. Gooseprickles formed in his skin, mingling with feelings of tension and a kindling he could not suppress.

Yes, Jaqen H'ghar will beat Aurion Archestrad in this showdown.

And more than that, he's going to make Arya Stark lose her fucking mind and enjoy every second of it.

* * *

 

Arya's toes curled automatically as Jaqen sauntered towards her with a wicked grin. It took the self-control of all honorable females to not squeal and bite her knuckles at the sight of him.

"Stop looking at me like that," she scolded him.

"Like what?" came his smooth reply. Jaqen lowered his gaze towards the bottled paints in front of him, his long lashes fluttering naughtily as he lifted his eyes on Arya's face.

"Like…" Arya exhaled from her mouth. "Like you're going to make me suffer."

He chuckled, and Arya wrapped her hands around herself upon hearing his laughter of indecent promises. "But what is thrill without suffering, lovely girl?"

Shit, he was  _so_  right.

Cheers from the audience interrupted their teasing. It has begun.

Aurion's object had her hands spread out on both sides, her chin raised the arrogant way, letting the brushes wet with paint run through her body. Even Arya could not help but stare at the way Aurion does it—the dramatic composition within the seductive swirls of clouds and wind and stars, the enchanting colors that carried the artist's creative license.

He moved with precision and elegance both, as if the entire process of painting is a performance in itself. And each brush carried a different shade—there was the dominant blue and the submissive yellow, the black and white. Gods, he painted as if he had seven pairs of hands.

Already, Arya could see Starry Night taking its form on that woman's body. She looked at Jaqen, who has not done so much as dip a finger in the colors, and saw him examining Aurion's style with narrowed eyes.

"Jaqen," she began, encouraging him.

"Shush."

The crowd went utterly crazy for Aurion Archestrad.

But Jaqen was shaking his head, clicking his tongue. "Wrong," he said, his attention still on the woman whose body was now half-coated. "Wrong… _wrong_."

"What's wrong?!" Arya snapped.

"It's not exactitude," he explained. "Starry Night—any art—is not about definite, calculated brushstrokes. He's counting his sweeps. So  _wrong_."

"Why don't you show us how it's done?"

He turned to her and smiled maliciously. "Why don't I?"

Jaqen settled the bottled colors back on the table. He then walked to the side of the dais and picked up one can with blue paint.

He reached her, and without warning,  _spilled_  that blue paint all over her nakedness.

The sticky wet of it hit her, warming her body, providing it some sort of elegant camouflage. A splurge of chaos—that's how the color appeared as the neon lights toyed with her form at various angles.

"Gods, Jaqen…"

No, Arya's artist wouldn't shoot for perfection tonight. Satisfy his creative urges—yes, this he will do. To hell with Aurion's dare.

And now, all eyes and cheers were on and for that artist who threw all rules in the wind and will attempt to pull out the beautiful from the bizarre.

He dipped both hands into a canister of yellow paint, and rushed to her.

Jaqen drew the whirling patterns of stars across her arms, using only his index and middle fingers, dampening the lights, scattering them. He moved to trace the intricate patterns along the exposed flesh of her breasts.

Arya's head spun. She couldn't breathe. There was the sensation of warm paint dripping from her body, the cool air kissing her in whispers, and Jaqen's fingertips creating a cohesion of mad shades all over her. He created the fabric of that world, told the truth of that story in her skin, on her woman's anatomy—as if she were old papyrus and he is the author and the paint is the ink and their love is the tale.

It was mystifying.

Her heart went wild as Jaqen satisfied her with the movements of his hands that had gone intense, as he recreated the light above the Rhone in his great sweeps and strokes. His eyes were on her eyes, his lips were  _almost_  on her lips.

"I'm losing my mind…" she whispered, then gasped as Jaqen knelt and ran three fingers in exaggerated, expressive brushstrokes, creating the black from her legs to her hips. He didn't have to unclothe her, not fully. She still had her undergarments on but he did the work just damned fine despite. Or maybe that's because her silk bra and panties were so thin and smooth.

He rose abruptly and whispered back in her ear. "Do you want me to stop?" Those words, while he reached for both of her breasts and stroked her there—swirling clouds, gust of air, the vaults of heavens in Starry Nights coming alive in each handiwork.

"No…" Arya panted, then tugged at Jaqen's hair. "No…don't stop…"

As he painted on her with his hands, he devoured her mouth like one feral beast.

Suddenly, everything was blur. Sights, sounds.  _Everything_.

"You're so perfect," Jaqen said in between kisses and paint-strokes. "I love feeling your body respond to me, Arya…"

He carried on exploring every curve and nook. His lips and fingertips were so gentle yet the flesh of these were smoldering her till her pores seethed with want. All the while, he blandished her with his naughty nothings, as if no one else existed in that place but them.

Like a canvas' easel, she spread her legs and he painted across the soft of it. She was begging…begging for his art and ink, screaming silently for him to mark her and claim her.

"It tickles a lot. Fuck, Jaqen…oh, fuck…"

"Really?" Jaqen purred. Traces, featherings, swirls. Arya moaned. "But I'm not even trying  _at all_."

Arya laughed. "Bellegere was so right. You're a naughty man, and a bad,  _bad_  boy."

"Bad?" Jaqen raked her entire form with a lustful stare, then settled on her face. He kept on stroking. "Let me tell you what bad is— _bad_  is me taking you so hard, pulling your hair, scarring you, baring your soul. I'm acting like such a fucking saint right now that it's killing me."

Arya giggled. Then, her eyes softened as she relished his touch.

"I love you, Jaqen."

"I love you."

Arya just…surrendered. In the midst of the throng of people in that place, cheers and jeers, lights, flashing and faded colors, she let him fondle and kiss her.

And she was slowly slipping into those elusive waters of colors and textures, with Jaqen's hands all over her body like wild hawthorns circling her, caressing her skin. It was a dream where her whole universe was upside down  _yet_  made perfect sense, where every touch and kiss and purr welcomed her soul home.

Finally, both artists finished, and three others went up the stage to decide who won the showdown.

Aurion's work was a magnificent replica of the piece—the heavens were bright at midnight, the clouds were silver, the stars were yellow, the church spire and the town toyed with the black and the blue. It was precise to the last detail.

Jaqen's work chose to veer away a little from the archetype. It was real, intense. It moves, and inspires, and spurs something within. It was both beautiful and grotesque, as if the undertones of the art screamed of insanity. And perhaps like Van Gogh, Jaqen H'ghar was indeed insane, for him to risk loving a woman he could never have.

He could never have her—not fully. Arya Stark can't simply be owned by anyone.

"Aurion," the critics announced. The decision was met by silence.

Aurion looked sideways at Jaqen. Their gazes met and the silver-haired artist smirked and threw Jaqen an obscene finger-gesture.

"Booooooo!" bellowed the crowd and there was Jaqen's name in their lips over and over and over like a chant, and immediately, the arrogant sneer was wiped off of Aurion's face. For Jaqen, the crowd's rage over the decision, their acknowledgment of his work were more than enough.

Paint fight ensued afterwards, and it rained colors in that place as the music played on, swaying the crowd in that night of revelry.

Arya tiptoed and kissed Jaqen on the cheek. She gripped his hand tightly, smiled. "You rocked the  _Merz,_ Jaqen H'ghar."

He smiled back. "Let's get out of here."

Arya slipped on her gown, unmindful of Starry Night all over her skin, and walked away hand in hand with Jaqen from that place.

* * *

 

That was three days ago.

Now, her footfalls were urgent, rushing. She told herself to calm down as she approached the revolving doors of  _Le Cercle_. She checked her watch—eight thirty. Aegon had said nine, but Arya wanted to be at the rooftop café thirty minutes earlier. She needed time to compose herself, to think, to choose the right words.

In her haste, she accidentally bumped into a woman carrying large Charlotte Olympias.

"Sorry," Arya muttered her apology as she helped the woman with the bags. The latter appeared clearly irritated, eyeing the Bentley parked just outside the hotel. When Arya handed the woman her purse, she grabbed it and strode off without even uttering thanks.

She didn't have the luxury of time to shove some manners down that woman's throat.

The café rose high above the sparkling Mediterranean, overlooking fine hotels and casinos that A-listers frequent at this time of year. The breathtaking view of the Cote d'Azur, palm-lined coasts of Cannes were visible from where she was standing. "For Aegon Targaryen," she told the  _maître d'hôtel_  who led her past oval coffee tables of cabriole legs, towards the spot closest to the view of crisscrossing yachts.

Her heart stopped upon seeing that Aegon was already there.

And he looked so beautiful wearing that shirt of arctic blue that was a gift from her, and the color went well with his white denim shorts and russet topsiders. The sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, revealing the strong arms that for three years, had carried her from the couch to the bed during their late night movie marathons. His attention was to the sea of cobalt blue, and though he was wearing sport shades, Arya could tell that his brows were heavily creased. She recalled the many times when she had kissed those creases away, when she had told him to take it easy with work and rest a bit, when she had pulled him close and made love to him and whispered how very much he meant to her.

Aegon pursed his lips—those perfect lips that she had kissed and loved, those lips that had for many years spoken of yearning, of commitment and certainty.

Arya's heart broke for him; so much so that she wanted to run away from that place for fear of hurting him even more.

But he saw her, and he smiled.

When he removed his shades, there were many things in his eyes—there were questions and worry and hurt, rage and relief, longing…

She took the next few steps towards him and prayed for strength.

* * *

 

_One look._

Aegon wanted answers—why did she run to Cannes and leave without a word? Where's that damned artist? Had they been fucking the whole while in his manse? What the hell is wrong with her? What did he ever do to her for her to screw him over like this?

But one look at Arya Stark, and the rage he had nursed for days just… _vanished_.

He didn't care if he would look like a complete fool faced with her. He stood and rushed to where she was standing, pulled her to him and locked her in a tight embrace.

"Aegon—"

"Gods, Arya. I've missed you so much…" he cut her with a whisper. Aegon buried his face in her hair and gently stroked her back. "Are you okay? You had me worried."

She tried to pull back. He didn't let go.

"Aegon, we need to talk."

"I know," he murmured and held her tighter. "Just…give me a few seconds."

Absolute madness—this love for her. And for many days he had asked himself if he needed a spare heart to feel all the things he felt, to contain that burst of emotions he had only for this woman. It was his fault, of course. He had raised Arya Stark like some goddess in a pantheon, that all other women are now cursed to live beneath her shadow.

He slowly let her go, kissed her cheek, led her to the table. He then motioned to one of the waiters.

"Black brewed—two,  _chausson aux pommes_  and blue cheese for the lady," he ordered. "And tarte for me, please. Thank you." He paused when he chanced upon that incredulous look from Arya. "Everything fine?"

"Y-you…" she swallowed. "How do you know I'd order those?"

He smiled as he reached for her hand and kissed the back of it.  _I've known you for years,_ he wanted to say.  _Unlike that fucking two-faced artist who wants you only for sex._ "I remembered Nice last year."

She smiled back, her face suddenly nostalgic.

The breakfast arrived. He took a sip of his coffee, his eyes locked upon Arya's features. He couldn't taste the brew, had difficulty swallowing the tarte, and for a while there he thought he was going to break.

He calmed himself though he felt heartsick. He had to be the stronger one.

Arya was only toying with her food, as if rehearsing in her mind the words she was to say. Finally, she turned to him, placed her hand on top of his on the table.

"I'm in love with someone else."

Aegon the Sixth had prepared for this. It would be damned easy to laugh at her declaration and challenge her— _'Love? That quick?'—_ or appear amused and imply that she had lost her wits, or simply let her go, act like it's not a big deal, find another woman.

It was fucking painful to swallow, and his insides suddenly felt hollow and aching. In another scenario he could see himself going on a rampage and humiliating her—asking her if Jaqen could fuck and lick better, branding her a whore, demanding for a price for her to stay and  _no_ , he doesn't care if it's going to cost him millions.

But he loved her too much to say anything.

"Oh," was all that came out of him. Aegon lowered his gaze and pretended to busy himself with the tarte, poking it with his fork. He couldn't breathe. "You would leave  _us_?"

And he sensed her flinch at those words.

"I fucked it up that bad?" he asked, daring to meet her eyes.  _Shit,_ he was dying.

She squeezed his hand. "Aegon, it's not you. Please…you were nothing but good to me."

He wasn't devastated anymore. He was numb, and that's even worse. Aegon looked at her and cursed inside because she was so,  _so_  lovely, and if only he could take it all back—the gallery, the yacht, Santorini, and every damned thing that pushed her, deepened her connection with that artist, he would.

But the clock only moves forward.

"Why leave, then?"

"Because…I can't hurt you anymore."

And he had realized much. Perhaps, in a previous life she was an assassin, a merciless life-taker, a murderer of hearts. Perhaps, in that previous life he had let her get away with killing, even if that would mean she would kill him one day in one way or another.

There was no other recourse. He couldn't just let her be blinded by her love for that artist—it would only break her in the end. He couldn't let that happen to Arya. He pulled his hand from her grasp and straightened in his seat.

"I  _want_  you to stay away from Jaqen," Aegon said, his tone changing from soft to firm. "Stay away from him, Arya. Or things are going to get ugly."

* * *

 

Fire and blood were in those eyes.

Arya shuddered at the sudden change in Aegon. She had known him to be gentle and calm, yet now…

"Ugly?" she asked, fighting the fear that slowly crawled underneath her skin. "What do you mean?"

He took his time responding. Something ominous danced in his face like a shadow.

"If you don't stay away, I will  _destroy_  Jaqen H'ghar." He stood from the table. "In the years you've been with me, you know that I am a man of my word. I do as I say."

Arya was shaking her head. "You wouldn't."

"Oh, I would," Aegon said in between clenched teeth.

"You've no idea what he's been through, Aegon!"

The clinks of spoons against cups were hushed with Arya's near-outburst. She didn't care—Jaqen had loved her only, and she, him. No one should suffer for deciding to be with someone.

"He doesn't feel the same way about you," Aegon said, as if sensing her thoughts. "You would only ruin yourself over him." He scoffed bitterly. "You're supposed to be smarter than this, Arya Stark."

Arya picked up her clutch bag. "I'm not going to listen to this at all." She stood and started walking away. Aegon caught her arm, whirled her back to face him.

"Have you seen his wife?"

Arya looked at Aegon's hand coiled around her arm, then at him. "His wife has been dead for three years."

"True," he replied. "But did your beloved Jaqen show her to you at all? In photos or paintings? In any damned sketch?"

She narrowed her eyes as she recalled Aurion's words in the art spree three nights ago.

_In which grave did you dig this one up, Jaqen?_

Wind died in her lungs. What did the artist mean?

_Persistence of Memory…Bellegere…the whole gala…_

Arya felt herself shudder.  _Fools rush in where angels fear to tread._ That sudden fear overwhelmed her, and she could feel it seeping through her every pore and torturing her inside. It was as if the ghosts of her nightmare revealed themselves to her in a split-second, and she felt paralyzed, even as her heart was throbbing in a thousand different places.

"Tell me, Aegon," Arya said in a voice above the whisper. "What the hell can I get out of forcing him to show me his dead wife?"

She felt him loosening his grip on her arm. "The truth."

"Truth?"

"Stay away from him, Arya," Aegon purred, kissing her cheek. His lips moved to her neck, then to her ear. He licked and nipped it gently. Arousal swept through her, fighting with the gut-wrenching fright. "Or else I'll destroy him. I'll do that before he destroys you."

Arya just watched Aegon as he walked away, too confounded to say anything else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [A possible Aurion: inspired by a reader's comment on Songs. XD I own nothing.](https://i.imgsafe.org/4b/4bd2b969c0.png)


	6. Cannes II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ['You've awoken me but you're choking me, I am so obsessed...'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSJ7ATpTi6g)
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> Thanks for the comments and kudos, lovely people. :)  
> For 21 and up. I still own nothing.

 

She ran in the cold night like she's being chased by devils and shadows.

Deadly shivers crawled all over her, her head pounding like hell, her heart beating faster than she could breathe or blink, as if blood wanted to burst out from her very pores. Her body ached in a thousand different ways, arguing with the mind and the emotions, the former commanding her to flee, the latter, to stay.

The streets were dark and damp, the wind, too dense and in a mocking mood. She didn't know how many people had cursed her as she ran, slamming against bodies and knocking some over, but she didn't look back. She couldn't. She had to go…

She had to  _leave._

Arya crossed to the other side. In her haste, she tripped and fell and felt her ankle break at the impact. Blaring horn from a passing sports car warned her to drag herself from the middle of the street or risk being run over. She stood and walked on, limping, one hand carrying her now useless heels and the other clutching her purse. She tasted blood, staggered with her steps but willed herself to go on, even as the horns and the headlights all over confused her so, and the green and yellow and red of the signals, the bustle of the city in the rush of night, the mad screams of her shattered heart, the tears in her eyes, and the near-hysterical sobs she was pushing down her throbbing chest.

She turned her head this way and that, hoping for a sympathetic face in the midst of an apathetic crowd. She found none.

He had fooled her, in more ways than one.

It was a ghost of herself which she saw in that cellar, and the ghost had stared right back at her. Its eyes were lonely, the reflection of a deranged mind and a mangled soul. It knew…it somehow knew her and who she was in that artist's life.

She reached the other end and hailed a cab.

" _Aéroport, s'il vous plaît_ ," she told the driver. The man had the better sense to keep his tongue leashed. One thing she admired about these people—they knew when to mind their own business.

The cab navigated its way across the usual flux of city-night, and Arya just sat there, wrecked and more lost than she had ever been.

* * *

 

"I suppose you're not the kind of man who would so easily give up on his…personal possessions."

Aegon the Sixth sat across Aurion Archestrad behind his desk, tapping on the too well-polished mahogany, feigning disinterest. Cold chill ran down his spine upon seeing this man again after three long years—the cause of his beloved friend's collapse, the antecedent of all the fuck-ups that had happened to Jaqen H'ghar.

"What do you want, Archestrad?" Aegon threw him a bored stare. "As much as I need to amuse myself with your nonsense, I have a meeting in ten minutes."

Aurion stood and took an elegant turn about Aegon's office as if he owned it. He surveyed the lush furniture, ran his fingers across framed citations and photos as if inspecting it for any traces of dust. "Looks too…high and mighty, this cave of yours."

Aegon smiled at the words. "I just asked you what the hell you want."

The man took his time walking back to the desk, his face an embellished mask of hauteur. "A favor."

"I don't do charity."

A chuckle. "I'm starting to like you, Aegon Targaryen. Really, I am." He leaned on the desk with both hands, as if trapping Aegon to another one of his schemes. "Your trusted friend is bedding your woman right now. I think it's  _you_  who needs charity more than I."

Despite his rehearsed composure, Aegon's blood shot up.

" _What do you want_?" he asked again, each word laced with a promise of violence.

"We have the same wants, I believe," Aurion examined his nails and shrugged with such sensual grace. "To put Jaqen H'ghar in a state of desolation from where there is no coming back."

She was on his mind the whole damned time. Those eyes, those lips, that addicting laughter, the spirit. Gods, can he not exist without Arya Stark anymore?

Truly, there comes a critical moment in a man's life where he would have to choose between his woman and his friend.

Aegon leaned forward. "I'm listening."

* * *

_~Four days ago~_

"I'm going to bathe you first. The longer the paint stays on your skin, the harder it is to wash off. That's latex and it needs serious scrubbing."

"I can bathe myself, thank you very much."

"I know. But I want to rub soap on your breasts while I fuck you senseless, so I will bathe you. I'll have my way tonight, and you will act like a good girl in front of me, yes?"

They were once again inside the limo and she was sitting on his lap, her legs straddling him. He was confined to kissing only her lips and stroking her body parts since she still has Starry Night all over her. And she was teasing him the whole time, rubbing her sex deliciously against his, riding him, feeling him grow harder and warmer in every caress. Arya unbuttoned his shirt and ran her hot mouth across his chest. She flicked his nipple with her tongue again and again, nipped it playfully while she curled the sparse hair of his chest with a finger.

"Your body tastes like mint," she murmured in between licks.

"You, misbehaving woman…" Jaqen groaned and viciously pulled her hair.

Arya laughed softly. "I didn't know you could be such a sensitive baby."

Jaqen palmed her breast and squeezed it, rubbed her tips intensely with the pad of his thumb. His voice was so guttural and deep that Arya didn't know whether the gentle quakes of her body were brought by his touch or by his words. "I'm going to do things to you, and then you'll think twice next time about taunting me." His other hand moved to squeeze her behind. "And I'm not going to do my sinful tricks on you all in one night. I'll take my sweet fucking time with you."

"Oh," she breathed out the words as he kept on stroking her bosoms and her ass. "We'll see to that. I've known that certain men could be all talk."

He snarled at her words. "Just you wait till we get home."

"And what will you do to me?" She pressed him with a coy tone. "Apart from staring at me the whole night and deciding whether you have the skill or even the guts?" 

He chuckled and licked her ear, bit the lobe of it. "You cruel creature. Fine, I'll tell you. I'll torment you with my mouth and my cock. I'll kiss you and bite you and fuck the hell out of you until you fill the whole manse with your filthy moans and wake the sleeping paintings. I'll eat you alive—"

"Oh, really…"

"Shut up. I'm not done yet," he growled and bit her lower lip. "I'll misuse you and break you so bad, and burn you to cinders. I'll do everything so your body smells only of  _me_ , until you can taste and feel and think of nothing but  _me_." His eyes went gentle on her. He cupped her cheeks with both hands. "Then, after I'm done hurting you, I'll heal you and love you. Now, does that answer your question?"

She can hardly wait.

"A bit." Arya rested her temple against Jaqen's. She clicked her tongue playfully. "Oh, no. I didn't know you could be so  _evil_."

They got off the car upon reaching the manse, ignoring the butler's questioning stare on Arya's body of scattered shades.

"The  _Merz,_ " Jaqen winked at the old man, and the latter just nodded his understanding.

In quick steps, they traversed the hallway with Jaqen's paintings displayed on the wall, the air thick and heavy between them, seeping through their wanting bodies and intensifying the lust. Arya knew—he wanted the animal kind of love that night, the raw and the unrefined, the kind where permission is not and never required, where sex is not sin but plain and simple need. Very much like breathing, like existing.

She wanted the same.

But the night was still young. There's time for small frolics.

Jaqen paused with his steps and looked back at her. "Can you walk any slower than that?"

"But I'm so tired…" Arya whispered, then smiled wickedly. She giggled when Jaqen's eyes widened with disbelief and irritation. "You go ahead. I'll just catch up."

The man looked as if he was about to explode. "I'm sticky all over and I can't wait to get to the bath. What do you mean you'll catch up?"

She collapsed on the floor, faking exhaustion. "Then, go take a bath. I'll shower  _after_  you finish."

Jaqen bared his teeth in annoyance.

Arya tilted her head to the side and smiled sweetly at him.

In two steps, he crossed the distance between them and hoisted her from the floor to his shoulder.

"Jaqen!" Arya laughed, wriggling her feet. "Put me down!"

"Hell, no."

Jaqen settled her on the floor of his luxuriant bath, still gripping her wrist tightly as if scared to death that she would just vanish. He shamelessly slapped her behind. "Take off your gown."

"Sheesh," Arya exhaled. "Stop acting like such a starving beast." She reached out for the hook at the back of her gown and started unzipping herself in painstaking slowness, her eyes taunting his restraint. After half a minute, she still has the whole frock on.

Jaqen hissed and shook his head, now slightly provoked. He folded both arms across his chest. "Don't make this difficult."

She raised her brows, her face a veil of innocence. "But I'm not even doing anything."

He growled and pulled her to him, then ripped her gown off of her body with such savageness that Arya had to bite her lip to hold back her moans. Beads and sequins and pearls flew in all directions and were scattered on the tiled floor, and the elegant trimmings of the dress were ruined beyond repair.

He then hastily undressed himself.

"That was a Victor Edelstein original!" Arya shrieked, then laughed as he carried her inside the shower enclosed in transparent glass walls. "You are so rude!"

"I'll buy you ten more of that," he replied, turning the shower on. One hand of his unhooked her bra and the other pulled her panties down. Jaqen pushed her against the wall and began kissing her—a merciless predator intent on drawing blood. He forced his tongue inside her mouth and swept the spaces, suckled her lips, swallowed her sweet sap.

_Still not enough._

A wave of lust and fire passed through every inch of her as she felt that harsh sexual energy radiating from him. She moaned against his lips but he suppressed the sound by deepening the kiss. She could do nothing at all but scratch at his decadently muscled back and bury her fingernails there.

"I need you…" she begged, her eyes now blinded by warm water cascading on them both. They were soaked in and out, and Starry Night dissolved as their bodies collided, the colors of it blending with his skin and hers. Thinking—fuck, even breathing—had become such an effort.

Jaqen H'ghar was all male, a species molded with testosterone and aggression, built for hunting and punishing and pleasuring, made with perhaps the darkest, most lecherous desires of the minds of the gods. Everything female about her suddenly blazed, was suddenly awakened tenfold. She wanted him so much—the man, the artist, the pure yet complex beauty that was him.

She reached for his sex and stroked him wildly. He groaned against her mouth, and she felt the tempest beneath his skin—building up, preparing to sweep away everything she holds, all that she is. She didn't know if she may be able to weather his strength, or indulge him on the same intense level. All her worries vanished when she felt his broad hands across her body, erasing traces of his art.

He let out a bestial growl as he rubbed her nipples in circles.

"Gods!" Arya moaned. He carried on fondling the crystal-like tips of her breasts, kissing her neck and grinding his hips against hers. His hardness pressed against her belly—so warm and almost leviathan.

Jaqen's other hand moved to trace the arcs of her waist, her hipbones, finding her swollen sex. He pushed a finger inside her and frolicked with her tight walls, from gentle to fierce, from mellow to all-consuming.

Like Pandora's box he opened her, unleashed her sensualities.

And though she was gifted with words she couldn't quite capture what she was feeling right now. This man has stirred something in her—it wasn't just sex, it was…wild thrill and fear and darkness, excitations and ecstasies that moved too fast that she couldn't catch them with her hands and couldn't understand them with her heart.

"Shit, you're so slick," he murmured, his dragon's teeth sinking into the fleshiest part between her shoulder and neck. "Let me clean you up."

He grabbed the bottle of jasmine-scented soap and poured it on her. He scrubbed her with his hard, calloused hands—neck, breasts, belly, legs…

Arya's body howled with desire.  _She_ howled with desire.

His name was on her lips, and in her consciousness there was only her need for him—the man she doesn't know but loves beyond reason anyway.

Her heart ached. She would give him all tonight.

The sweet scent of soap, his ginger-and-cloves clung to her nostrils and her pores. She dragged her fingers across his wavy hair, and tugged at it forcefully, threw her head back as she relished the sensation of water cleansing her, and Jaqen's tongue defiling her. He devoured her breasts and he didn't do so gently—the sound of his suckles bounced back in echoes through those transparent walls of glass, and Arya loved it so, the way Jaqen was claiming her like she was just  _his_ , in this version and all versions of infinities.

He knelt and splayed her legs and swept her sex with his tongue, and that first lick drove her to the point of near-madness. He licked her shamelessly, tirelessly, his tongue fluttering over her sensitive, wet folds. Arya's hands desperately searched for anything at all to grasp so she could keep herself upright, and when her hands found none, they gripped Jaqen's hair tightly instead.

"J-Jaqen…" she pleaded. "I...can't breathe…"

He ignored her.

It was that impetuous, insistent passion for him that impelled her heart and mind to reckon with her body, till there was nothing left in her but flesh.

Arya's back arched as he kept on sucking her down there. Hysterical curses escaped from her mouth. She begged him to pause for she was already aching with impossible want and she didn't want to die—not yet—she didn't want to die because of this overwhelming desire for him…

But Jaqen kept on going…his deep growls crawling beneath her skin…demanding even without words that she climax for him.

Her bundle of nerves reacted, throbbed, shattered her resolves…

She breathed his name as orgasm swept through her.  _Breathe…_ she commanded herself.

Arya's moans could scandalize even the nude paintings in the artist's gallery.

_Oh, Jaqen…_

She was trembling, her body reaching heights she never thought were possible to touch, and asked herself if she just died in that ecstasy brought by him.

And when she had regained a bit of herself, she chanced upon Jaqen staring at her with disbelief.

"W-what?" she panted, then rubbed herself against his sex, wanting more despite that release.

"You came  _that_  fast?" he asked. "I wasn't even—"

"What are you talking about?!" she shrieked.

Jaqen kissed her, then smirked. "You have to control yourself. I happen to have a near-insatiable appetite. We have to balance it out, sweetheart."

What a bastard.

" _Balance_  it out, huh?" she replied, her brows rising to the challenge.

"Shush," he kissed her again, then gazed at her lovingly. "I love it, your reactions to everything I do. It's like, you were really built  _for me_."

Why, of course.

From the moment they had laid eyes on each other, Arya Stark had stopped holding sway over herself—her body, her sensibilities, the soul in the deepest part of her.

She had allowed herself to be owned by him. She is  _his_.

_His?_

_Jaqen's…_

She loved the sound of it.

But she would love it better if she could own him too— _completely_. No secrets, nothing between them. Just him and her.

"Enough of your territorial, possessive crap," she replied with an imperative tone. She then moved out of the shower with all the feline elegance she could muster. Arya slipped on her robe, feeling Jaqen's hot stares at her every movement. "I need you to do something for me."

"I have a feeling I'll regret this," he teased her, robing himself with the same animal grace. He looked like an arrogant deity standing like that, towering over her, hands on either side of his hips. "Women don't usually give me orders."

"Well, that's about to change." Arya said as she gazed at him with devilish eyes. "You can't act like the gods-damned ruler of the world all the time, Jaqen H'ghar."

"Oh?" he lifted a brow, taunting. "Such fancy lines. If I can't be the gods-damned ruler of the world, then who am I allowed to be, if I may ask?"

Arya threw him a wicked smile as she stalked up to him. She stood on the tips of her toes, whispered in his ear.

"No One.  _That_  is who a man must become."

He let out a satisfied, satisfied snarl.

* * *

 

Arya was the dominant mistress that night, the hot wife.

And perhaps , Jaqen thought, the goddess Innana who was known to force men into submission at her feet had decided to possess her and gift her with sexual prowess straight from the pantheons.

Pain, ecstasy. Laments and erotic songs. Endless, earthy moans. Oh, Jaqen felt his cock twitch at those thoughts.

He didn't know what had gotten into him. It all came in too fast, the rush of it almost like a shadowy, sexy dream.

Hell, she was really  _that_  persuasive.

They were in the grand hall of his manse where all of his most expensive pieces were displayed. It was dark in that place, with the only illumination coming from the moon itself—its subtle rays seeping through the giant glass windows like gentle shades of gold.

Jaqen H'ghar was seated in the middle of the hall, both hands tied behind his back and around the splat of a cushioned chair, blindfolded,  _stark naked_.

 _Hers_  for the taking.

At least, she didn't gag him. She was still a little merciful.

Their shadows moved in the ebony of night. He couldn't see a thing but he could sense everything—her soft footfalls, the lustful, wanting exhales. She smelled of snow and pinecones, of jasmine of the bath. She smelled like wild sex.

Jaqen smiled.

"You are a twisted, beautiful creature of the gods, Arya Stark."

_Smack!_

She had slapped him. Damn, he could feel the pain a hundred times over—in the absence of sight, he could suddenly  _feel_.

He chuckled quietly, then felt a vicious pull at his hair. His head was thrown aback with force.

Her hot breath slithered across his shoulders, his neck. Her lips moved against his ears. She whispered the words in her sweetest tone. "I'm sorry, Jaqen. But if you would not shut your mouth, you will  _really_  get hurt."

Oh, Jaqen wanted to laugh so hard and slap his knee if only his hands weren't tied, but he controlled himself. He will let her play for a while. Then, he will collect her sins and make her atone for them afterwards.

Damn it, he's going to break her with his love.

He gasped as she ran her tongue across his thick length.

_Hah…my good, good girl…_

His sex was pulsing without control, as if he would burst in front of her any second. It wasn't mechanical, rehearsed, that style of hers if one could even call it that. She was reckless and untamed, and though she started with naive kissing and licking and petting his shaft, Jaqen knew better—all things wicked start with feigned innocence.

The feel of her lips and tongue was too intense, too maddening. Indeed, the other senses compensate for the lack of one.

She took him the way she took everything—with imperious control, with that wolfish demeanor that would usually send weaker men running for their damned lairs. Oh, but Jaqen loved the challenge, loved the boldness in her, that part of her that hurts and loves and risks all.

Jaqen loved Arya Stark so damned much.

She drew him in her mouth in lawless rhythms, whimpering the whole time as if she was the one being pleasured by him. He had never felt himself grow this hard and thick. He leaned against the seat's rest and clenched his fists tightly, felt the ropes that bound him roughly scratching at the skin of his wrists, losing it…losing every damnable thing...

_And the sounds she makes…hell. The way she sucks me…_

Gods above, Arya Stark knew how to love a man.

"Fuck, Arya. Your mouth…" he groaned. His hips buckled as she sucked and licked his crest alternately. "I want to bury myself in you right now. I want babies."

Her hands stroked him as she replied with a sensual voice he was hearing for the first time. "That's not going to happen anytime soon. You need to be  _disciplined_ first, damn it."

Jaqen roared his laughter at those words. He wasn't able to control himself because hell, that was amusing.

No deed would go unpunished tonight, it seems, as he suddenly realized that it was so,  _so_  wrong to laugh at her like that.

_Smack!_

That slap stung him a thousand times more painfully that the first one. Another slap came…then another…then another…

Her mockery did nothing to bend his machismo to her will. The act heightened his virility in fact, and every second he was wasting playing captive with her like this when he should be taking her with such brute force agonized him in incessant levels, woke the beast caged within him.

_Smack!_

"Fuck, just you wait till I free myself," Jaqen growled. "You're going to beg—"

She crushed his lips with a penetrating, hungry kiss. Jaqen cursed inwardly as straddled him and dipped her tongue inside his mouth, the woman did not even let him finish talking. Rage and mad lust overwhelmed whatever reason he still had left. She was really testing his limits, rubbing his nipples in circles like that and stroking her sex against his length so leisurely.

He deepened the kiss, let his tongue do the war dance with hers. He bit her lips and drank from her mouth as if it was a fount of all things sweet, and it was so difficult possessing her when he couldn't see a fucking thing.

She pulled away.

Jaqen moved to reach for her mouth again but couldn't. All chaotic, lustful emotions writhing within him were to the point of near-explosion—Arya would only brush her mouth slightly across Jaqen's lips before pulling back, and she did that cat-and-yarn trickery of hers over and over.  _Shit!_ Jaqen roared and she only giggled, running her tongue across his naked chest. Everything was a damned fast-shuffle so boldly done, utter deception, a well-rehearsed mummer's act. She was mist glissading on top of him, a hissing snake from Eden, an erotic specter he wanted to fuck so badly.

She took small bites of his skin all over—neck and shoulders, chest, abdomen, the soft of his thigh—and Jaqen shuddered at the gentle pains brought by it, and the soothing feel of her tongue after every soft grip of her teeth.

Then, she wolfed down his sex again.

"Ah! Arya Stark!" his voice thundered as he felt the ferocity of her licks and suckles. He groaned when her mouth closed in around his tip and lingered there, then gasped when she took in his entire length. She was going deep-throat on him.

She sucked harder…deeper.

_Fuck, fuck, fuck…_

"Fuck, Arya," he grunted as he moved his hips in rhythm with her wicked mouth. "Gods, it's too good…I'm going to come so hard…"

Jaqen felt the pleasure building up, concentrating on that area between his legs. She moved with such ease and grace, and he could picture her on canvas—the dark goddess, the Moon, the she-wolf, the water naiad—all women in various forms and faces and shades. In the more naughty aspects of his mindwork, there was Arya with the catsuit and the stiletto heels and the whip, the governess with bizarre tastes and fetishes. Jaqen could go on and on. The art she inspires within him is just endless.

His need for orgasm, his need to show her what she had  _done_  to him, mattered more than anything else.

Arya Stark had reduced Jaqen H'ghar to nothing but a medium through which the sensual animations of all men flow, and he had never felt so primal, so mortal, so…dependent on her.

_Arya Arya Arya…_

And he's reaching it…every fiber of his masculine body being shred apart—

But she pulled back again.

_Tease and denial._

Anticlimax engulfed him mercilessly.

"Arya…" he whispered in a half-plea, so close to that phantom peak, shaking, sweating, and still  _very_  blind. He had to chase it again, that level of heat, that summit. "Baby, no..."

She kissed him. Whispered. "Beg."

"Don't make me."

"Beg, sweet Jaqen."

"I'm going to fuck you so hard till you lose your mind—"

" _Beg._ "

He smirked arrogantly. "The hell I will."

He sensed her standing up and sauntering off. "Suit yourself."

Jaqen knew very well what she was doing.

_Chastisement. Powerplay._

_This is clear fem domination. Not fair._

He snarled, writhed against the rope that shackled his hands, coiling all the way up to his elbows. One wrong move and he either breaks the chair or his bones. He struggled—on and on and on and in vain.

A furious grunt escaped from him. "I'm not playing this stupid game anymore."

There was a deadly pause in her steps, a quick second of silence. He could feel her turning her head to regard him, and if only stares could kill, then she could have murdered even his soul by now.

Faster than he could breathe, her lips were again brushing against his lips.

"Oh, Jaqen. We never stop playing."

Then, she kissed him savagely, and he felt her many hands touching him, and her many lips tasting him. Still, he couldn't get enough. She would destroy him with that dangerous, wild love of hers and he realized, he wanted to be consumed and misused that night, the way he wanted to squander and desecrate her.

"Open your legs and sheathe my cock in you. Now."

"Shut up. I'll do it in my own damned time."

He roared in ire, then reached down to suckle her breasts ruthlessly. She moaned his name.

"Stop playing coy, Arya. Untie me and let me take you now."

"No."

Jaqen exhaled and shook his head. He's really going to make her pay but for now…

" _Please_ , sweetheart."

Arya paused with her romancing and continued teasing him. "I didn't catch that."

"Please _…_ " he repeated, panting. "I love you and I just…want to be with you. If only I'm not tied down to this chair I would beg on my knees and kiss your feet."

_I swear by the gods, Arya Stark. I won't let you rest one second once I'm unbound._

_And holy hell, more than that, I really love you._

That might have worked. Two seconds, three.

He felt Arya lowering herself onto him.

"Don't disappoint me," she murmured her threat in his ears, then allowed him to take her.

* * *

 

Jaqen's sex brushed against her legs as he shifted, preparing himself to claim her. She shuddered.

Arya has never played this game before, yet with him she wanted to do everything, feel everything. She needed to be unmade by him, then brought back to life afterwards.

She had the advantage of all worlds right in front of her—those of flesh and forms and those of souls and deep connections forged, embodied by  _her_  artist. She realized how aching and empty she was, realized the truth that there was a single man tonight and in all nights that could satisfy her discontent, blandish her with love and passion such that she had never felt before. And her layers of dreams with him at the center could never compare to this.

All. She wanted it all.

Jaqen moved to meet her and she whimpered at the contact. Damn, he knew where to position himself, how fast and slow and how deep he should go, what to say. Arya wrapped her fingers around Jaqen's length and willed him to penetrate her, and he obeyed.

The folds of her cleft tucked him in, and it was searing pain she felt. Arya gasped as she took him deep inside.

"Jaqen…" she moaned, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her face there, breathing in the scent of him. "It…it burns."

He shushed her, whispered words of comfort. "It'll be fine. Go slow."

"But you're too huge for me."

"And you're so snug that I could feel your walls. I love it."

He groaned as she settled herself on top, taking all of him in.

They were in a tight cocoon, locked in an embrace where there was no letting go. The world would pass and they wouldn't notice—they were so lost in each other.

Her core stretched and tightened as she sucked in his throbbing sex, and she marveled at how Jaqen still managed to sheathe himself more fully inside her when she thought she had taken him to the root. He began moving in slow, sexy rhythms underneath her and though it made her feel and see colors and stardusts it didn't seem right—she should be the one taking control, moving mercilessly on top of him, making him give up fully on whatever sort of control he still had. But there and then, her wanting body had gone from tempestuous to serene, pliant, obedient and yielding to whatever he wanted and needed to do with her.

It was surrender. She loved the feel of him so much, every soft thrust a beautiful, mysterious language of bodies. Arya closed her eyes, focused on the way he moved inside her, caressing her walls, slightly stroking her womb. She let out a desperate sound that might have been a sob. She had never felt so…cherished, so complete.

"Jaqen…" she moaned. "You feel amazing."

He responded with a deep, very gratified growl. His breathing had gone uneven, still starving for her.

 _Sweet heavens, how his body loves._ He burned her and remade her from the ashes in every move and whisper, shattered her and built her back from the pieces. Jaqen was art and poetry and song, and he was inside her—not just in the physical sense of it. His blood is hers and his life is hers and his heart is hers, too.

There was a tug within her, an urgency to give him what he needed at the moment. Arya pulled Jaqen's blindfold and allowed him to see her fully, her naked body and the feminine fulfillment she was feeling, shown in every angle of her face.

Their gazes locked as they met each other's movements.

"You're so beautiful," Jaqen purred, each word a grunt of effort as he kept on pushing and ramming himself inside her. "You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life."

Arya felt Jaqen's body radiating sultry heat, sweating beneath her. She kissed him. Her hips churned impatiently, danced faster, sheathed him deeper. "I want all of you, Jaqen."

He growled. " _Take it slow_."

"I-I can't." There was only the intense need to mate with him, overwhelming her sensibilities. "I want you to come inside me."

"And I will," he snarled at her. "Let me relish this for just a while, then I'll fill you with my cum."

Pleasure scattered in those very places where their bodies collided, and Arya savored the luscious soreness of her sex, the pain and the thrill, the feel of him that was both velveteen and rough. She savored the sounds his mouth made as he groaned, the sounds his sex made as he took his sweet time thrusting in and out.

 _Arya, Arya—_ she was on his lips, and the way he said her name like a prayer to the gods heightened her passions even more, intensified the excruciation and pleasure of that sensuous moment.

She tugged at his hair of red and white, gripping tightly lest she loses her grasp of reality for good. She rocked her hips and rode his cock, chasing climax with him as he slid his thickness in her with such skill.

Jaqen writhed violently underneath her, and for a while there she contemplated pausing. Shameless cries of one indulged escaped from her lips as he gripped her hips tightly—he had managed to unbind himself, and he was so in control now, not letting her think or breathe or blink as he forced her hips north and sound of him and battered into her.

"Now, you'll pay…" Jaqen's smile was wicked, feral.

He shifted her into an oblique angle that would allow him to reach her deeper—as if he's not deep enough—and Arya cursed as she felt the cap of his sex rubbing a tender spot inside. He carried on fucking her, talking dirty, cruel, romantic all at once that she didn't know which words to believe anymore. She didn't care as long as he didn't stop.

Jaqen punished her some more with his lunges, held her down and tight.

For a moment, her heart stopped beating.

And that nebulous matter encased within her female's body had suddenly exploded.

Spasms, static shocks, pure ecstasy.

"Jaqen!" She squealed and squirmed as she felt her entirety shuddering uncontrollably. Arya had climaxed so hard that she thought she would be annihilated by the sheer pleasurable feel of it. "Jaqen! Oh…oh…"

This is how it feels when the mouth is kissed, the skin is touched, the flesh is loved. This is what it means to be alive.

And he only watched her in her lovely, erotic collapse, watched her as her boldness and sanity fell apart, grinning savagely. He pounded faster, buried himself in her fathomless depth, racing her to that orgasm.

" _Please_!" Arya moaned, though she didn't know what that plea was about. She wanted him to stop and keep going, wanted to love him and hate him.

"Fuck," he breathed, grabbing the nape of her neck and resting his temples against hers. He kept on thrusting, growing harder, warmer. "You're mine, Arya Stark."

"Oh…J-Jaqen…" She was still shaking all over, and she didn't know when she could recover from that climax. Jaqen kept on sheathing himself in, going faster by the second, until brutal pleasure ravaged his lovely face.

He groaned, the sound too primal and needy, a growling release. Sexual heights tore into the both of them, and she felt his warm seed filling her, saturating her feminine lair.

" _Arya…Arya…_ "

Their scattered breaths suffused every space and corner of that hall. The paintings only witnessed them—lifeless, mute, unseeing.

Arya Stark had laid herself bare to Jaqen H'ghar—soul and body both, and she did not regret a single thing. She would do it again until she becomes the eternal prisoner of his love that is the slave's chain, until they had memorized each other, until they turn foolish and powerless faced with the other one, until the demarcation between who he is and who she is was completely erased.

She is  _his_.

Just his and no one else's.

 _Jaqen's_.

* * *

 

Two hours of sleep—that was all she had managed to give herself that night.

Jaqen was just  _ravenous_ , and even after that lustful exchange they had in the grand hall, it took him four more bouts of sex with her in various places around the manse, as if he wanted to mark every corner and stone with their love. He took her in the hallway, the stairs, the studio, before carrying her to his bedroom.

The bed was too huge for them both, and the whole night, she kept on waking up with him at the other side of it. Just a whisper of his name was enough to stir him awake and pull her towards him in a tightest embrace.

Arya didn't dream that night and in the nights that followed. She didn't need to. Now, reality is so much better than sleep-induced trances and delusions, no matter how splendid they may be. Jaqen had shattered all of her fantasies and given her the real thing—imperfect, yes, but solid and genuine, nevertheless.

 _Real_. Something that she could actually see and touch, taste, feel.

In the deepest part of her however, was the instinct to not fall and surrender herself fully, to shield herself and be on her guard for pain and for a mad devastation of hearts that might come in at any time. Life with him—the breakfast and the laughters, the calm walks down the coastal streets of Cannes, the flowers and paintings and music, the lovemaking at night, the whispers of how much she meant to him—these were just too perfect to mirror the truth at all.

She had not been wrong.

After that bitter meeting with Aegon the Sixth at  _Le Cercle,_ Arya had asked Jaqen's manservant to show her the place where paintings of Nȳhmēria were kept.

The man's ghastly reaction to her demand sent silent dread creeping down her spine. The man appeared as if she just asked where she might dig up the woman's corpse.

"Uh," the manservant stuttered. "I would very much prefer to show you around the place once the  _Monsieur_ is here—"

"Jaqen is off to see a client and he won't be here until tomorrow, Izembaro," Arya replied casually. "The one in the hall is masked. I'm just curious about her face, that's all. I won't touch or steal anything." She surprised herself at the jape and the wink that came from her afterwards.

"Please,  _mademoiselle_ ," the man begged, now sweating profusely. "That place is off limits."

"Even to me?"

"The  _Monsieur_ doesn't even go there anymore. I would lose my job if I allowed you in."

Arya laid a hand on the man's shoulder, smiled. "He wouldn't know. I promise."

Perhaps, she really did want to savor the pain of truth—the truth in Aegon's very words—because she now stood there in that dark, decrepit art cellar at the manse's base.

Alone.

Only the flashlight guided her in that labyrinth, and in her hasty survey of her environs she thought that this may have been a glorified place before the woman had died. There were traces of it being an intimate den where Jaqen and his wife may have spent their nights, huddled close on the elegant settee, gazing at the art in their leisure, whispering lovely words to each other in the midst of kisses and meeting of their bodies.

She could still hear their laughter murmured by the wind…

Arya felt numb as she walked past the now battered pillars, the stained glass masterpieces now broken and dusty, the artworks whose eyes were on her, the hues scattered on the floor, dry and dead.

She stopped at the center of the art cellar where the thousand faces of Nȳhmēria were lovingly preserved.

There she was in all her magnificence, Jaqen's goddess, the cause of his bliss and blight. There were no masks to hide her face.

Her eyes were alive, blazing, as if questioning Arya's presence in that cellar, in that manse that was  _their_  home, her very presence in Jaqen's life.

_Gods above…_

She almost collapsed as she fully saw the woman's face, painted intricately on one of the grandest framed canvases.

This is  _not_  mere resemblance, as those people from the gala and Aurion had claimed.

The face was  _hers_.

Arya was not Nȳhmēria, yet the woman's eyes were her eyes, the woman's lips were her lips, and perhaps if the dead could speak, Arya would be able to hear her own voice coming out from that woman's mouth, her own words rolling off the woman's tongue.

She walked across the aisle where more paintings of Nȳhmēria were displayed, flashing her lights on those faces.

Hers. Hers. Undeniably hers.

 _Twin stranger—_ this is who Arya was to Jaqen's beloved wife.

She struggled against the agony in her chest, the desolation that suddenly swallowed every thinking part of her. She wanted to scream and tear at the painting, yank it from where it was hung and shred it to damned pieces, maul the dead's face, curse her, curse Jaqen H'ghar...

Aegon was right.

Jaqen  _didn't_  love her—he would never.

He loved his wife, and he took Arya in only because she was Nȳhmēria's reanimation, the living entity of the dead he worshipped, thoughtform and art incarnate, the lovely doppelgänger.

_Oh, Jaqen…_

To him, she was nothing more than a face to look at whenever despair would hit him and whenever he misses the woman he loves, a familiar body to warm his bed, a plain replica with neither real nor worthy existence.

To Jaqen, she is  _nothing_.

 _Nȳhmēria_ …

Nȳhmēria is everything.

Arya Stark ran past the paintings, navigating across paths like a desperate fool would in a giant maze of lies. Her eyes darted to every space and direction, confused and betrayed, and just when she thought she had reached the way out, a giant depiction of a pregnant Nȳhmēria spread out in full sight with the light she held, and stopped her dead.

The woman was bloodied in that painting, barely clinging on to life. Slashed wrist, gashed neck.

_Shades of Rue._

Arya screamed in utter fright and anguish. With tears in her eyes, she ran in the night.


	7. New York

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ["I know that I ought to be the one who's strong and just moves on..."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFAg6b1ai20)
> 
> Thanks for reading, lovely people! And for the kudos and comments, too. :)

 

"Where's Arya?!"

Aegon hid his shock upon seeing a distraught, seething Jaqen. He couldn't guess when was the last time the man had taken a good look in the mirror, much less shaved and slipped on fresh and iron-pressed shirt and pants.

Two of his bodyguards had already stepped in to shield him from his friend.

 _Friend?_ Could he even call Jaqen that after the artist's betrayal of his trust? After stealing the very person that mattered to him the most?

With a wave of his hand, he ordered the guards to stay at ease, then took calm strides from the lobby towards his Maserati parked in front.

It was already ten in the evening and the office building was almost empty. He needed to grab some dinner on the way, have a warm bath perhaps if he had the time. He just got off the phone with his assistant, the files were already on his worktable at home, sorted, ready for evaluation. The woman had been dropping hints, offering to stay with him till the wee hours so they could finish the documents. There was even a mention of a seven-year old Sauvignon Blanc, some naughty play of words about how he should loosen his tie sometimes, an allusion to  _Chantelle_ —which he had learned was a brand of lingerie.

Aegon had refused.

It was partly because he couldn't imagine himself naked in bed with a woman other than Arya Stark, and partly because he was still hoping that she would return to him, and so having casual sex while wishing for an impossible reconciliation with her doesn't quite spell faithful lover-in-waiting.

Of course, he was being the greatest fool. He knew Arya Stark was hurting him without his permission, yet he was so drunk in love that he could almost see nothing in this damned world but her.

He wanted to stop caring. He couldn't.

A paragon of  _la douleur exquise_  in Daario's words—the sufferer, the hurting ex-fiancé, the one who desired and still desires someone he could never have and someone who wants nothing to do with him.

He wanted to laugh at himself.

Jaqen dashed to him and grabbed his shoulder, forced him face-to-face. "Where's Arya?!"

Aegon's eyes narrowed and moved to Jaqen's hand that was gripping him. With cool and imperturbation, he spoke. "Get your hands off of me. Don't scandalize yourself here, this is hardly the place to be uncouth."

"Stop dancing around the goddamned problem here," Jaqen said, baring his teeth. "Where is she?"

Aegon smirked. "You flew all the way here to ask me that? Isn't she tied up to your bed in Cannes?"

He felt a solid jab to his face. Aegon landed on the floor and tasted blood at the side of his lips. He flexed his jaw, cursing under his breath.

His chasers were prompt, wrestling with the artist, seizing him and twisting his arms behind his back. Jaqen growled as he struggled against the guards' unyielding grip. "Do you want us to dispatch this one, Boss?" one of them asked.

"Unhand him," Aegon ordered. He stood, wiped the blood off and fixed his suit, then walked on.

"What the fuck did you tell her?" Jaqen was still raging, sweeping away the hand of one who still held him by the shoulder. He took quick strides towards Aegon who only ignored him. "Did you dig up lies and dirt about me and fooled her?"

Aegon kept walking.

"Did you threaten her?!" Jaqen went on. "Goddamn, that better be it. You know that any other maneuver of yours would fail pathetically—she would never run back to you unless you menaced her in some way!"

He paused with his strides and clenched his fists tightly.  _She would never run back to you._ Pain gorged his heart. Words do kill.

 _One woman._ That was all it took for him to lose Jaqen—the man he had once called his brother. Once, Aegon had vowed to destroy any bold soul who would mess with him, had sworn to wage a thousand damned wars for his sake.

He gave up a decade of friendship for this tragedy that was his love for Arya Stark.

After pulling his brains from both warpath and grief, he turned to the artist.

"I told her about Nȳhmēria."

"She knows about Nȳhmēria," Jaqen shot back.

"Does she?" Aegon replied, taking unhurried strides towards Jaqen. "Does she also know that she's just a fill-in for your beloved wife?"

"What the hell are you talking about?!" Jaqen raved.

"Oh, come now," Aegon scoffed, his eyes now smoldering with contempt. "Don't tell me you weren't planning to use her as a sex marionette. That you're practically Marquis de Sade in bed is common knowledge in the inner circle. Do whatever the fuck you want with all the women since your dead wife could not fill the role from the grave, but please don't drag Arya in your goddamned sport."

The words were out before Aegon had realized.

Jaqen looked as if he was flayed and consumed alive by a hundred demonic memories.

Those words struck home, waking those long-buried, long-forgotten sufferings his friend had endured. Since Nȳhmēria's death, Jaqen had indeed been with a lot of women—a way to drown his grief and bitterness. His total loss of self was concealed through 'late-night discourses' on the philosophy of art and the Romanesque and  _Frau von Cotta_ with naked models _._

Jaqen's voice was quiet, haunted. "I am not that monster."

The undivided attention of those who were still in the entrance hall was now on them, as if what Aegon had revealed was even more amusing than their fistfight earlier. "Everybody out," Aegon ordered them all, his eyes still fixed on Jaqen's desolate face. They all ambled out of the building—receptionist and doorman included. "Out!" Aegon repeated himself when his guards made no move to leave him.

Then, there were just the two of them.  _Old friends._ And silence.

Jaqen finally spoke. "I loved Nȳhmēria, but she killed herself because she loved another man. You know me well enough, you've known me for so long—yes, I've made mistakes but I would never harm Arya like that, no matter what hell I've been through in the past."

Of course, Aegon knew that. But he was hurting and he wanted Jaqen to share the pain, to burden him too, and so he sliced open the still-bleeding wounds by uttering those words.

Still, there was his obsession that was stronger than any form of coherence of thought, and it was blinding him.

"I don't care what you did or didn't do to Nȳhmēria," Aegon seethed. "She killed herself and you loathed her for it. Yes, you were grieving but you were also angry. Who's to say that you would not channel that secret rage of yours towards Arya? And don't you fool me—we both know that they have the same face, explains why you've decided that you wanted her when you've only met her. Fuck, you even went behind my back! She's already been through a lot and the  _last_  thing she needs is a man like you."

Jaqen let out a bitter chuckle. "And who does she need?  _You_?" He pointed a forefinger at Aegon's face. "You wouldn't know what to do with her—she's stronger than you are and somehow that scares you. So, what do you do? You tell her who she's supposed to be, where she should go, what she ought to do with her life. That's your fucking forte—you mold her into something that you can easily understand. That way, she'd never question you being the boss of her life."

Aegon scoffed, shook his head. "You talk as if you really know her. Let me tell you one thing," he said in between clenched teeth as he walked closer to the artist. "You've fucked her, but that doesn't mean you know  _any_  damned thing about her that matters. Tell me, Jaqen—who is she and what does she want? Did she ever talk to you about her family? Her fears? What's her damned story? Did you even ask her about anything at all while you were licking her all over?" Aegon walked closer, his face now inches away from Jaqen's—a move to emphasize his disdain. "Fine, I'll give you an easy one—do you even know that she  _hates_  paintings? She 'hates art  _en masse_ ', her own words when I made the mistake of asking her to see your pieces at the Cube. You don't know that, do you?"

Jaqen's jaw hardened. He kept his mouth shut.

"Thought so," Aegon smirked. "Because if you know the littlest thing about Arya Stark, you would not even ask me where the hell she is. Damn it, Jaqen. You're  _pathetic_ and you're wasting my time." Aegon began to walk away. "But don't worry. She's safe—"

He had not gone three paces when Jaqen spoke.

"You're right."

He looked at the artist over his shoulder, brows raised.

"You're right," Jaqen said in a quiet tone. His eyes were glistening and burning too brightly at the same time, as if there was  _someone_  in his mind, and that someone was holding him together. It was the same someone whom Aegon loved and still loves to the point of throwing away his affinity with a most trusted friend.

Jaqen carried on. "I don't know many things about Arya Stark. But I do know  _this_ ," he gazed fixedly at Aegon. "Three years ago, I had died with Nȳhmēria. I existed from then on, but never really  _lived_. Then Arya Stark came and…and…" Jaqen exhaled, running his fingers through his hair like a madman who found the one thing that made sense. "She's absurd and annoying and most of the time she talks about nonsense. But when she's in the mood to  _really_  talk you'll hear her speaking about Baudelaire and crescendo of stars and metanoia and some other personal argots of hers you'll break your head trying to decipher—she thinks too much and feels too much.

"She's a wolf and she's cruel and intense and dark, but beneath those layers she's really sweet. She likes listening to pianofortes, and maybe she hates paintings but she wouldn't tell you that outright because she knows you'll get hurt and so she pretends that she had developed a certain fondness for them. She loves it when you smell her hair and hold her close without saying anything at all. And with every second I've spent with her, I've learned why you fell so hard for her." The artist smiled wistfully. "Now, these things may mean nothing to you, but they all point to Arya Stark—insignificant they may be—so they mean everything to me.  _She_   _means every damned thing to me_. And don't ask me how or why Aegon, because even I don't know the answer."

With an aching chest, Aegon listened.

Perhaps, he had known those truths about Arya Stark too, in the years that they have been together. But he was so focused on the grander, more complicated things that he might have missed out on the lovely details.

And perhaps, Jaqen had seen every little bit about her. And that was not just because he was an artist and had the eye for pieces and fine points. He  _sees_  her, in the most complete sense of the word.

Aegon knew his old friend—and when his old friend loves, it's all or nothing.

"And you're right," the artist murmured. "I don't have to ask you where she is. I will find her. I'll tear down all fabrics of this fucking universe if that's what it takes."

Jaqen walked out the doors of the building without so much as another word. Even the burly guards gave him the right of way.

Aegon only watched him leave.

* * *

 

She had never been in a city that seemed to see and feel the vast pain and what little bliss she had, a place that seemed to understand the hard life and how she sucked at dealing with it, yet doesn't judge her, doesn't criticize her for it. She could get lost in its urban-scape of skyscrapers in grid patterns, the traffic, the rush of people with stories of their own, the smell of bagels and coffee and smoke and newspapers, the hidden misery and mask of euphoria of the streets at night.

Arya Stark could be anyone here— _free_ , just one face in an ocean of ten thousand others.

It might be easier to forget about everything when sights and sounds overwhelm the senses. There's hardly any space in one's wretched brain to think of anything else.

But she didn't want to admit why she had practically begged Sabine to take her to the Met at Fifth that Saturday. They had spent two hours looking at pieces from the hands of Edvard Munch and Matisse, a collection of  _obras-primas_ in sculpture and painting, those creative, compelling photographs.

And in all the works, she saw just one man.

It took everything she had to not collapse on the museum's floor and sob her broken heart out.

He was right in front of her—that very flawed, shattered, breathtaking, and beautiful artist, but she had let him go.

Of course, her reasons were justified. She would not remain a living ghost of the woman the artist really loves. It would just break them both if they carry on with a relationship built on illusions and impossible vagaries.

They were on the museum's rooftop café, and Sabine was talking animatedly. Arya only pretended to listen. On and on it went in her mind. There was one piece in the Met's upper level which captivated her, and which she was so sure she would dream about tonight.  _Les Amants—_[The Lovers](https://imgsafe.org/image/07057bb590)—a 1928 piece by Magritte, oil on canvas.

A man, a woman. Kissing passionately. There is no deeper, lovelier depiction of love as a blind thing. It was surrealism at its purest.

Their faces were shrouded with cloth—the purpose being either to tease and entice the inner voyeur in those who would look, or to conceal the subjects' identities. With that white drape covering their heads, they appeared faceless, unseeing. But perhaps beneath the shroud, her partly-lidded gray eyes were locked in his irises of bronze-and-gold, and perhaps he was murmuring promises against her soft lips.

Perhaps, they were talking about forever.

_Perhaps._

The curator had said that the piece was slightly inspired by Fantômas, a ruthless, elusive character, who gets away with killing by wearing the faces of pretty much anyone. The painting was supposed to be brutal and tragic, sorrowful.

Arya thought that it was painted with impossible romance in mind.

_Much like Jaqen's and mine._

Loving a man like him is literal self-destruction. It was compellingly, achingly beautiful, except that it kills and maims, incapacitates, shatters and mutilates one in the most profound level and sense.

"Earth to Arya," Sabine teased, gazing fixedly at her. "She's rather occupied today, for someone who wants time-out from everything."

She thrice-blinked. "I-I'm sorry."

Sabine only rolled her eyes and stirred her milkshake. "I'll go into labor in less than two months. I agreed to get dragged in here because someone said she 'needed to talk'. All I'm getting is the lovelorn, heavily infatuated disposition and the cold treatment. I want to stretch my legs on the couch already."

Arya exhaled, then offered the woman an apologetic look. Her eyes settled on Sabine's full-grown stomach, relishing the silent thrill of knowing that there's a breathing thing inside her friend's feminine body. Oblivious to everything else, she reached for it and traced the perfect curve with her fingertips, then gasped as she sensed the infant kick.

"Gosh!" Arya exclaimed, now running her palms across the woman's belly in gentle motions. Her grin was from ear to ear. "I felt him move!"

Sabine only smiled, taking in Arya's reactions. "Oh,  _yes_ ," she carried on with her heartless teasing. "Now, Jaqen is making you think of  _babies_. How very harrowing and inconvenient."

Arya's smile faded at the words. She suddenly forgot how to breathe, and poisoned thorns twisted themselves deep in her chest.

_How very true._

Their love is fiction only—too passionate yet too sudden, too deep that there's no climbing back from the hellish abyss of it, no recovering from the storm of it that devastates. Every damned day since she had arrived in the city, she sees his face in every person she would meet, senses his shadow in every street corner, hears his voice in every split-second of silence when conversations stop and sounds of traffic pause for a while.

And every night, she feels him—the ghost of his touches and kisses and purrs. His male body was on top of her, inside her. During dark's peak hours, she wakes up, cold, broken, forgotten, and she screams because Shades of Rue is in her head and it never goes away.

And every second, she misses him…

Arya shook her head, her face now too forlorn to be read. "Everything was going smoothly with Aegon. Too bad I can't force myself to love him again, the same way that I can't force myself to act logically—"

Sabine laughed softly. "Act  _logically_? Oh, that's not how it works, girl. Heart doesn't answer to logic."

"You've got it all figured out, haven't you?" Arya bit her lip, shoved down the anguish threatening to consume the last shred of self-control she still had. It was necessary to hold on to herself—she would break down in front of all the people in that café if she didn't. "I mean, you and Aegeus. A house, a baby on the way."

"Yeah, I had to go through some war of gladiator-like proportions against the other women to get what I want." Sabine shrugged.

For the first time since her arrival, Arya let out a true laugh. "You make it sound like you enjoyed the whole lot."

"Oh, I didn't," the woman replied. "It was totally excruciating. And you know how Aegeus was before—he loved to play, he used to think it amusing to have a list of women he'd fooled into staining the sheets with him. But I saw something in him that others didn't—he just needed someone who would  _stay_. But he was too proud to admit that truth."

"You know that he just acted like a rake to get your attention."

"You're missing the point," Sabine replied. "What I want you to understand is I fought for  _my_  man, Arya. It almost destroyed me, but I loved him too much that I just kept going. I didn't let some woman—alive or  _dead_ —stop me from having him."

"That's easy for you to say," Arya replied, her voice breaking a little. "You're not deceased-wife-by-proxy. I am."

"You gave up a three-year relationship for that man, only to give him up as well. That totally makes sense." Sabine drank from her glass. "Did you even talk to him before you ran away?"

"No."

The woman laughed. "He's probably wreaking havoc in the whole of France by now. Or better yet, ' _scouring the realms to find you_.' Now, that sounds more like something Jaqen would do."

"I can't believe I'd let him paint on me."

"I can't believe he'd let you tie him to a chair and fuck him blindfolded and silly."

They both laughed. Then, Sabine looked at her with soft, understanding eyes.

"When you're ready, hear him out."

Arya shook her head. "I…I don't know, Sabine."

"You do know he's going to find you sooner or later, right?"

"I hope not."

There was pity in Sabine's countenance as she regarded Arya. "Are you sure?"

Arya only nodded and forced herself to smile. "We're better off without each other. Some things are just…not meant to happen, I suppose. And that's okay."

 _Okay?_ She was being the biggest hypocrite.

And damn it. The heart-wrenching pain of not being with him was killing her.

Days ago, Arya had asked Sabine what the woman was like, just so she could understand the artist's obsession for her. "Nȳhmēria was…a loving wife," Sabine had said. "She and Jaqen—they used to look at each other the way children would look at the stars. I've known her and she loved fiercely, without leaving a shred to herself. Maybe, she did fall for Jaqen's bane, but I've always thought this: that maybe, she had died without being able to tell the whole story behind it."

 _The whole story._ Arya recalled the piece of paper she had found at the back of one canvas in Cannes.

It doesn't matter now.

Jaqen's love for his wife was so fathomless that he had built a whole universe with only her at his manse's cellar. A pantheon, a whole altar chamber. It would have been beautiful had it not been abandoned and forgotten. Traces of her would never really disappear, not in a thousand years after they were all long gone.

Yes, Arya had been with Jaqen H'ghar for a short time, and though she knew that the connection between them was deeper than anything she has ever had without respect to time, she cannot take on the role of a phantom lover, a warmer of the artist's bed, a temporary fire. A fucking  _object_.

_I loved him like I would the dark—I loved him at my most desperate, at my weakest. I was lonely and I didn't know I was._

Jaqen taught her how to breathe, and laugh, and be free. Arya was dead and he had somehow brought her to life.

_But he still loved the dead more than I who has learned how to live for him._

She cannot compete with Nȳhmēria. Gods above, she would never win.

"Let's go, Sabine," Arya said, rising from her seat and struggling to keep her tone light though her chest was collapsing in on itself. "Aegeus must be itching for you at home. I don't want to steal you longer than necessary."

Oh, a man to love and a home to build.

How she envied her friend.

* * *

 

It was three whole months filled with agony and rage for Jaqen.

As he had discovered through the French Police and the airport authorities, Arya had flown from Cannes Mandalieu to Helsinki, purchased three tickets to Anatolia, Capetown, and Brisbane, then, went on to another flight from one of those cities.

He had flown directly to those three places, personally checked out the list of flights and passengers and recorded camera feeds, sought for assistance from authorities, contacted the banks for possible paper trail of her ever paying hotels or restaurants through her credit card. No trace of anything—not even petty cash withdrawals, not even a silhouette of her in the surveillance cameras all over the cities.

For nights, his face was buried in a pile of documents his intels had gathered for him, and when he wasn't combing through reports, he was on the phone—demanding for answers, raising his voice whenever the contacts he was so generously compensating would return his calls and report nothing of consequence.

Most of the time, he was out on the streets, madly searching for her in every corner. He was so lost that he had once asked himself if it was  _he_ —not Arya Stark—that needed to be found somehow, or saved, or chased back to his wits.

 _Nothing_. She could just vanish when she wanted to.

After many torturous days, he found out that she had never set foot on those cities.

_Don't run away from me, Arya Stark…_

He was falling apart, and he was in that state of complete ubiquity, too—he was just…everywhere and nowhere at the same time, wanting to find her yet not, needing to end his self-inflicted anguish yet couldn't.

Defeat and surrender would relentlessly hiss at him while he dreamed at night, and he would wake up feeling so hollow, a thousand times more obsessed with that woman than ever. As if such misery wasn't enough, he would find his body reacting so lustfully and so lovingly on mere thoughts of her, and he couldn't count the number of times when he had touched himself in the bath or spilled his seed on the bedsheets after pleasuring himself, with her lovely face vanishing from his mad fantasies.

He was not that desperate yet to threaten Aegon with a gun on the head and demand for concrete answers.

It was against the rules, but he was running out of choices. He took the risk of contacting one of his acquaintances at the CCC Schweiz to hack into the wide database of flights and trackers of plane paths straight from Iridium's satellite systems.  _Gods,_ he could be charged with espionage for such a dauntless but utterly stupid act, and on top of that, the hacker was  _fucking_  expensive. Jaqen didn't care.

After a hundred days, he had found her.

_New York._

It made perfect sense—the most obvious choice is the last place where people would look. Most would choose to hole up in cities that were off the grid, but Arya had chosen to get lost in a literal crowd.

Sabine is there, with Aegeus.

Of course, Aegon would know. He has Arya's every move monitored.

And perhaps, Arya was thinking that Jaqen would never venture to that urban jungle. He liked the quiet so much, the seclusion, that the idea of stepping foot in that place of civilized anarchy to look for a runaway lover wouldn't quite add up.

But she doesn't know everything. And she doesn't know that once a man decides to be with a woman, nothing in the damned world could stop him from having her. Desert winds cannot be calmed, waves cannot be told to cease meeting with the shores.

And the heart cannot be forced to stop loving.

Jaqen H'ghar had claimed Arya Stark, disregarding all ends and limits and boundaries. And gods be damned, he would search for her over and over if she decides to get lost and hide and break his heart by walking away.

That same night when he found out where Arya was, he boarded the plane and rushed to her without even packing a single shirt.

* * *

 

"Thanks," Arya said as she took her take-out order. The man behind the counter wished her well. "Have a good night, too."

Thunder rumbled from a distance. From the diner's window, she surveyed the heavily clouded night sky, slipped on her coat. Forecast announced a whole evening of lightning and rain. The Times demanded one hell of an overtime from her—not that staying at the press till the ungodly hours of the night was a new thing in her months of stay in the city. A lot more happens in this part of the world, and so the drafts for the daily paper were twice as thick, and thrice as brutal and bloody.

She needed the till-ten-o'clock stay at work, she had realized. While some may argue about the evils of working oneself to death, she had to admit that its effect on her was quite the opposite.

After an exhausting day at the Daily, there would only be dinner and shower in her desolate apartment. Late night news, some music, a good book—she could withdraw into the silence till her nerves and her mind and her heart calmed themselves to sleep.

It was good. It was  _good_. Every day, she would be too occupied and fatigued to miss him, to even…think about him.

_Jaqen…_

Lightning sliced through the ebony sky, brighter than the silver of the moon for a split second. She hastened up, joining the rush of people heading for the subway. Once it rains, traffic would be a nightmare.

City lights glimmered in the near distance, revealing the impressive skyline and architectural marvels of the city's high-rise structures and towers. In her months of stay, Arya had looked but had never really  _seen_  anything. But she would one day—she could take the night bus tour with Jaqen and ride a boat across the harbor, have some fancy dinner with him close to the island. They could check out recent pieces at the Metropolitan—let him indulge her with his elegant art-tongue while he discusses the whole history of each work—probably see some plays on Broadway, or go biking in the Park, try out those giant burgers downtown and watch him tackle with casual dining, play wedding at the St. Patrick's—

 _Unfuck yourself, Arya_.

She tried to ignore that silent sorrow gripping her, the emptiness. In some warped way, she wanted to meet her end in the middle of a city where no one knows and cares about who she is. The pain was becoming too much to handle—she was sure that clawing her heart out of her chest would not chase away the throe even after she had stopped breathing.

Yes, a lot of times she gets lost not in a city of eight million souls, but within her fantasizing self.

She gets so damned broken and lost when it comes to all things Jaqen.

It started pouring. Horns from passing cars had gone impatient and impolite, and people took hasty steps to either take cover from the brewing thunderstorm or catch the train. Heavy rain bore down mercilessly, gushing from the roofs and awnings, turning the sidewalks of brick and cobblestone into warrens and pools of muddy water and little rivers, and people couldn't care less if they splashed rain all over with their too careless, too hurried trotting.

Arya loved the rain. It reminded her of London—the hum of precipitation drumming softly on the roofs and whispering as it hits the streets, the feel of smooth liquid drops splattering and sliding across her outstretched fingers when she holds them out of the window, lazy days with a book in one hand and hot cocoa in another, the smell of petrichor, the serenity of all of it.

She couldn't go back to those peaceful, uncomplicated days she once had. When the artist came, she had started living a life where nothing is predictable, where everything is a gamble and everything is subject to chance, a shot in the dark.

But she had learn to love it so,  _so_  much—that  _uncertainty_  with Jaqen H'ghar. And that…that might turn out to be her most fatal flaw.

"I'm sorry," she murmured as she accidentally bumped into someone heading for the opposite direction. She checked her watch beneath the coat—ten thirty.

She took a short-cut to the left. Just as she was approaching the bend, strong hands grabbed her arm and pulled her to an empty alley…

Arya felt herself being pushed against the brick walls of the apartment building, and before she could scream her lungs out and thrash against the person's hold, hot breath slithered across the skin of her neck, warming her in the chill of that rainy night.

"Arya…"

_That deep purr. That scent._

She gasped as he nipped her skin softly, then licked her collarbone over and over as if to soothe her.

"Jaq—"

He silenced her with a famished, penetrating kiss.

Rain kept pouring in torrents, soaking them both. Arya shuddered at the contact, at the lust and relentless want that suddenly simmered then blazed within her.

The cold kiss of rain vanished as Jaqen consumed her lips and forced his tongue inside her mouth, and he was so unmindful of the outpour that cascaded down their faces, the din and ruckus in the not-so-distant intersection, the fact that she couldn't breathe and was clinging on to dire life. His strong, male body was against hers, and his hands roamed around her every part—marking her, owning her. Arya had realized this before, that Jaqen was too territorial, too possessive, and she was a fool to think that she  _could_  actually run away from him.

"Jaqen…" she moaned as his lips explored the partly-exposed flesh of her breasts. His rough stubble punished and pleasured her skin. She whimpered as he moved to suckle her nipple against the wet, thin fabric of her blouse. Gods, it's a damned good thing that the alley was totally empty. "How…"

She couldn't even finish her fucking question because he was already moving his hips and driving his hard, insistent sex against her.

"Why did you run?" Jaqen murmured against her lips. His left hand moved inside her pants and grabbed her ass, kneaded one cheek of it softly. "I was so worried about you, I almost went crazy…"

"Jaqen…" Arya groaned, throwing her head back, relishing Jaqen's kisses and whispers and strokes, basked in the storm's brutal cleansing. Her fingers brushed his wet hair—longer now than she last remembered it.  _You found me…_ her heart wept.  _I didn't want to be found yet you searched for me, anyway…_  A hundred days, a hundred harrowing days. "We shouldn't be doing this  _here_."

"We'll go to your apartment, then," he purred. "Let me make love to you there."

She wasn't sure what response came out of her mouth, only that it was a pathetic, Jaqen-desperate murmur. Her entire system was suddenly stirred to impossible life, his masculine body appealing to her raw sensorium, drawing out savage sexual response from her.

"Gods!" She squealed as she felt Jaqen's hot mouth closing in on her left breast, his tongue and teeth working on her nipples. How he managed to unbutton her blouse and lift her bosoms from the bra she was wearing were just beyond her.  _Shit!_ Arya bit her lip as the warmth of Jaqen's suckles seeped through every freezing part of her. With the heavy rains falling in a rush on her face, she couldn't see well—couldn't know who might be coming. He licked her over and over, tasted her feminine flavors that mingled with the rain. "Jaqen! Stop!"

"Why." A challenge posed as a question.

He kept on sucking. Like a babe. Loudly at that.

"We're in the middle of New York, you  _shameless_  brute—"

He drowned all her other words with another deep kiss, all the while palming her soaked and exposed breasts. Her nipples had gone pink and swollen and sensitive because of his ruthless plundering. She moaned when the artist rubbed them with both thumb and forefinger, then squeezed them gently—tempting her. " _Shameless_ ," he growled as he carried on with his romancing. "Is me not bothering to drag you into an alley and just doing my thing in the streets, considering how much my cock missed fucking you, Arya Stark."

"S-stop," she still begged. She yanked his wet hair, squirmed upon feeling his fingers inside her pants, now immodestly fondling her sex. His lips moved to her neck.

"You teller of tales," Jaqen snarled as he finger-fucked her. "You  _don't_  want me to really stop, do you?"

_Heavens, no._

She didn't want to go home tonight on that same empty, cold bed.

Damn, she had missed this too, more than she dared to admit. She missed being fucked so hard by Jaqen H'ghar.

And more than that…

Arya missed the kisses of his mouth, the indulgent whispers and the boldness and predatory savagery with which he ravished and explored every part of her. She missed the hair, the nose, the lips, the passion and the strength and the tenderness in the spaces of all these things. She missed the way he owned her body without needing to express that it does and will always belong to him—all edges and surfaces and centers—like living art.

And the way he made her flesh and bones feel, gods above…

Yes, she missed how he protected and cherished her in his own strange way, the way he loved her from the inside out. She missed how her soul falls to its knees whenever she sees his rare beauty, his fierceness, his affections.

"Fuck, I love you so much, Arya Stark," he grunted as he flirted with her body. "Don't you ever run away from me again."

Arya wanted to say yes to him. She could just pull down her panties a little and let him fuck her right there, against the wall…in the dark…under the rain.

But there  _she_  was—screaming and broken and bloodied at the back of her mind. There she was, with the gashed neck, the full, pregnant belly, the dead eyes.

She drank the anguish like liquor. It was the only way to preserve herself.

"Let me go."

He paused to look at her face, his expression confounded.

With all the might she could gather, she pushed him, then moved to fix her clothes that he had manhandled. She picked up her bag and the now sodden and useless take-out food, and walked away from the man.

"Arya…" he called.

"Stay away from me, Jaqen."

She took another short-cut, the closest route to the train. Arya angrily brushed the tears that mingled with the rain on her face, and hastened her steps. Lust and angst crawled through her body, undoing her sanity. She descended through the subway stairs, attempted to lose him by slipping into the throng of commuters that had already gathered there, pushing her way in, bumping people along the way and not bothering to utter an apology.

"Arya, please!"

Jaqen grabbed her arm and forced her face to face with him. The crowd parted a little at the scene—even with the near-midnight rush and the storm outside the station, people still had the time and the interest to look. If only she wasn't already breaking apart inside, she would have screamed at the crowd to mind their own damned businesses.

"I said let go," she snarled. Arya forcefully pulled her arm from Jaqen's grip, and when the man grabbed her by the waist, whirled her to face him, and attempted to kiss her— _kiss_  her on the lips in front of all these gods-damned people who were apparently taking delight in the theatricals he was unnecessarily putting on for them—the strings that held her mind in place suddenly snapped.

Arya gave him a tight slap on the face.

"Ooooh…" hooted a group of males at the side, their jeers directed towards Jaqen. "That was sexy as hell. Now, go teach her a lesson, man."

She walked towards the males and pinned them all with a deadly stare. Amusement died in their faces as they backed off from her. Arya pointed a finger at each one of them, seething. "If you wish to keep your diminutive cocks  _intact_  about your pants, then I suggest you scatter."

There was something about her firm tone, her foreign-sounding accent. They promptly dispersed and blended with the mob.

"Talk to me, Arya."

She ignored him and half-walked, half-ran to the gates and towards the approaching train.

It took Jaqen less than a minute to purchase a ticket and rush to her again.

_Damn, when will he stop with the chase?_

But the crowd was thick, and the flux of people coming in and out of the coaches was a blurry mass that Arya was sure Jaqen wouldn't be able to squeeze past them and get to her. She needed to be as far away from him as possible, other recourses could be thought of and planned in the next hours.  _Keep running, Arya,_ she heard her inner, more rational self urging her.  _Save yourself._

She boarded the train car, not daring to look back. Arya walked to one of the poles and gripped it tightly, prayed for the doors to close and for the artist to miss the boarding.

Weary souls, lives of 'quiet desperation', troubled fancies and spirits thinning, stretched—the many faces in the train would make a good painting.

Jaqen didn't make it. He would have to wait for a second train to arrive.  _Thank heavens._

Arya shut her eyes tight and breathed deeply. She shuddered, still soaked from head to foot. With another sigh, she removed her coat and ambled towards the other side where it's warmer. "Sorry," she murmured her apology to an older woman whose foot she had stepped on. With much difficulty, she navigated her way across that tight maze of tired strangers.

Train lights flickered on and off.

She paused.

There he was, unmistakable with that height and hair and that built, stalking up to her like a stubborn shadow.

Some of the females appeared to have been awoken from a long stupor by this man, and their eyes were trained on Jaqen H'ghar like feline beasts of prey, assessing every inch of him, possibly wondering if he tasted like the wild sweet and spice of their lewd imaginings. The effect— _gods_ , even the men were turning to look, as if one sex-god incarnate decided to fraternize with mortals in that Brooklyn-bound train.

"Damn it," she muttered, then turned her back to him and headed for the other side—away, away from this man.

"Arya, please," Jaqen called to her. More people turned to look, pausing with their occupations with the paper or the phone. "Don't walk away like this."

She paid him no mind, pushed her way through the crowd.

"You're wasting your time hiding from me, Arya Stark," Jaqen said as he too, made his way toward her. "I'll keep finding you wherever you go and you know that."

Raised brows, wide grins, soft chuckles. One male with headphones around his neck had the audacity to open his mouth and toss a side-comment out of nowhere. "Smooth." Scattered giggles from some females erupted from the far corner. The elders were shaking their heads.

Everyone's attention was on them now—this won't be a boring train ride home after all.

"I searched for you all over for months—"

"I didn't ask you to," Arya whirled to face him, now a brewing tempest, possibly stronger than what awaits them all after the ride. "I didn't ask you to do any damned thing for me, Jaqen."

He appeared wretched in the face of his calm. The typical he. "I  _need_  you, Arya."

Hoots, low whistles bordering on appreciative and taunting came from some who derived amusement from the encounter.

"No, you don't," Arya shot back, ignoring the sneers of the other passengers. "You just need someone who looks exactly like your lost lover. You needed to relive your days with her and right the wrongs, do it all over again. Maybe the second time, it'll work." Her eyes were burning yet she managed to throw him an embittered, sardonic smile. "Well, I'm not some experiment you can rip open and sew back after you're done, I'm not a fucking substitute."

"Why are you dragging Nȳhmēria into this?!"

Now, the tears were falling. She didn't care if they were embarrassing themselves in front of all these people, she needed to let it out or she'll one day explode and may not be able to pick up her shattered pieces of self after her collapse. Angrily, she brushed the tears away. "Stop playing the part of an idiot! They were right—all of them. Aegon and Aurion, and those acquaintances of yours at the gala. I went down to your art cellar and saw her. I'm a twin stranger to Nȳhmēria and you know it, Jaqen. I have her face and her body; maybe I have her language too, or her manners, or her oddities. Aurion saw it all. That's why you wanted so badly to have me in your goddamned bed."

Those closest to them were now apparently engrossed in that fight.

Jaqen scoffed and shook his head, then ran his fingers through his still wet hairlocks. "I don't believe this."

"I don't believe this, either," Arya replied. "How you've managed to fool me. I'm usually smarter than this, Jaqen. But you were so good at manipulations that I almost destroyed myself for you. I desperately wanted you to love me… _for me_. But I guess that's asking for more than what I'm entitled and allowed to have."

It was as if silence was a moving thing that swept through that train. No soul knew how long the stillness and the hesitations had lasted—not that these mattered at all—and if not for the doors opening and closing to let passengers either in or out, none would have guessed that suspension of time was actually an impossible thing.

But maybe, all came to a stop a few seconds ago because the story between these two unknown faces was just too good to ignore.

Arya deliberated getting off in that station but decided against it. He's the unwelcomed one, he's the one who should leave.

She turned on her heels and strode towards the farthest end of the coach as the train began moving again.

"I've been asking myself if this is even worth my time and my strength," Jaqen said, following her, unmindful of the stares and smirks thrown his way. "I couldn't paint, I couldn't sleep. You've robbed me of my faculties that I stopped knowing how to function when you left."

Arya kept walking, ignoring him and the spectators who were gawking with clear amusement at them both.

Jaqen continued. "You said you loved me but you believed those people and entirely dismissed what I have to say." He grabbed her arm, forced her to face him.

"Let me go," Arya seethed as she struggled against his grip. "And stop this madness. I'm not your dead wife."

Jaqen laughed bitterly. "Oh, no, Arya Stark. Of course you're not her. I see  _nothing_  in you that could possibly be of any resemblance to Nȳhmēria." He shook his head, and his voice was breaking as he spoke. "Gods, she's cultured and prim. You're wild and unpredictable,  _insufferable_  most of the time. She mostly keeps her thoughts to herself while you—you never shut up about any damned thing because you just have to win in every argument. You're loud and bossy, you want everything your fucking way, even on the bed you have to be on top or else nothing's going to happen the whole damned night."

Arya couldn't speak, couldn't move. She merely looked at his eyes, searched for the truth in them.

"Nȳhmēria would  _never_  laugh at my work the way you did at the Cube—she understands art and you don't," he continued. "She would never piss me off like that in my own yacht by dangling another man in front of me, then seducing me after. She never talks dirty, never calls me pet names the way you do. Hell, she would never break the rules and jump off cliffs in Santorini in her bikinis, or kiss me like a deprived wolf out at sea. She would never drag me to the  _Merz_ and dance for me like you did, or strip her gown in front of all those gods-damned art freaks so I could paint Van Gogh on her naked skin. She could try but she wouldn't be able to make me blush at the sight of her, like she's the hunter and I'm the prey. She would never,  _never_  tie me on a fucking chair."

"Stop—"

He pulled her in a tight embrace, whispered the next words in her ears. "You were  _nothing_  like her—and that's what made me love you so desperately. Yes, Arya Stark, I love you against soundness and sense, against my better judgment, against my idea of happiness or hope, or my understanding of what love is. I love you, I  _love_  you. Please," he moved to kiss her eyes and lick the tears away. One kiss on the nose, the lips. "We have a whole lifetime—let me prove the sheer magnitude of the love I'm capable of, before you decide that you don't want me."

She could hear the murmurs of those who were touched by his words, can sense the misty eyes of the women who needed someone who would utter those words to them, can feel the inspiration he had given the men.

The train kept on moving, it's journey's end so certain that Arya envied it.

This thing with Jaqen—the vagueness, the connection that mostly relied on guesswork, the lack of certainty—this thing with him was what she had indeed known to be love. It's raw, instinctive, it's a  _mess_.

But it's lovely. The way that the galaxies in his art were lovely, or the strength that bound them to each other, or the beat of his heart against hers when they're cocooned in each other's arms.

It's lovely—as lovely as he is. And this is the kind of love from which no one could ever come back…

However, there are things that he must know.

Jaqen has been living a lie, fed a tragic story about his wife's death. And she couldn't do this to him—claim him when she knew that perhaps, his story with the dead woman had not reached its close yet.

He too, must decide if he truly wants to keep her. After all truths.

Arya broke away from the embrace, fished for something inside the pocket of her bag. A folded paper, partly soaked by the rain. She looked up to him and spoke. "She loved you, too…so much, Jaqen."

Slowly, he took the paper from her, unfolded it.

He inhaled deeply upon seeing the contents of the paper—a letter, in his wife's handwriting.

"What—"

"I found it in the cellar, and I read it. I believe I was owed some answers."

Jaqen looked up from the letter to her, his eyes pleading. "This changes nothing, Arya."

She shook her head. "This changes everything. I'm sorry, Jaqen."

The doors opened. Even as her heart broke so painfully at the sight of him, even as she wanted to throw herself in his arms and take him home, Arya got off the train, leaving Jaqen to his thoughts as he read that last message from his wife.

Arya had to let it all go. His smile, his kisses, the way he had held her and taken her and branded her as his.

She went on her way—amidst the throng that would depart and arrive at their own destinations in their own time. Rain and wind lashed at her when she walked out of the station, but the fierceness of thunderstorm was drowned by pain stronger than anything she had ever felt.

* * *

 

Aurion was at the backseat, his eyes following that lovely, lovely wolf that had emerged from the subway.

He felt himself grow hard at the sight of her— _wet_ , lost in the brutal storm. Ah, she might need some distraction.

He licked his lips, palmed his arousal throbbing against his pants. Aurion gave his driver a quick nod.

"Tail her."


	8. Florence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ['Oh, sometimes love's intoxicating, you're coming down, your hands are shaking...'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RmZXG8_HH4)
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> Thanks for the comments and kudos, lovely people. :) Sorry for the late update!

 

A thousand conversations were told in voices that could wake even the dead, and Jaqen H'ghar cursed under his breath as he headed for the bar, muttering to himself that he didn't know New York socialites could be this rambunctious. He was told that Bemelman's was the quietest place to get liquored up—seems like he was fooled.

 _Fuck,_ even the jazz was suddenly annoying.

He couldn't complain—he didn't want to return to his empty hotel room and mull over that bitter exchange with Arya Stark. That useless brooding would just turn into a whole night of him unnecessarily touching himself and hallucinating about her. The artist sat on a leather stool—too fancy for his own liking, and ignored the muscled bartender's enticing smile, the silent invitation for a night of toss and turns that was more than hinted in his eyes.

"Absinthe, eighty-five," Jaqen growled, running his fingers through his hair rather infuriatedly. A sharp exhale, another curse.

The bartender hesitated, concern replacing the lust in his face. "Are you driving tonight, sweetheart?"

Jaqen threw him a murderous stare. "None of your business."

"I can mix you some cocktails—"

" _Give me the damned drink_ ," Jaqen hissed, emphasis on each word.

The bartender paled and blinked, then began preparing the liquor. "I'll make it light."

"I don't care how you make it," he snapped. "Just do it."

He surveyed the place. It was ritzy and elegant, but Jaqen only noticed the swirls of smoke that hovered across the room like ugly strokes of gray gouache, the irritating sound of laughter amongst the white-collared men, the sharp smell of bottles and spirits mixing with perfume and what he was guessing was a hint of cocaine. The lights were dim, the music, a bit dysphoric and dragging.

His liqueur glass was already sitting in front of him when he turned his attention back to the bar. He took a quick swig and settled it on the wooden counter a little too forcefully, then demanded for another one. The bartender raised his brows, but took the glass anyway and prepped a second.

Jaqen H'ghar wanted to do one of two things that night—either die from inebriation, or rush to Arya Stark's apartment and make sweet love to her there, whether she's willing or not.

_Gods, what's happening to me?_

That letter did change everything...and nothing.

He threw his head back a little and pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaled sharply. Inexplicable aching hammered his chest.  _Nȳhmēria…Nȳhmēria…_ the man's heart keened. His wife, the woman he had loved, had shattered all truths he had held for three years, the hushed wrath he nursed within him when he thought she had loved another.

Those words of hers would forever haunt him.

 

~~~

_My dearest Jaqen,_

_Forgive me. I had to do it for us._

_I love you. I have never loved anyone so strongly, to the point that I chose to die rather than live if dying meant he couldn't get to you and break you. Maybe, I didn't know how to love until you taught me, and even then, maybe I have never really learned. Or maybe, I loved you only in the way I knew how—and that was not enough._

_It all happened in the art gala at the Negresco. I suspected then that something was wrong with my champagne._

_My suspicions turned out to be true. The next day, I found myself in Aurion's bed._

_For many months, he had drugged me with Devil's Breath, and I was ensnared, not by any form of inclination towards him but by fear. Fear of him, fear for you. He threatened me, stole my will, my capacity to think and act for myself because of that drug. During those months, I was a slave to his bed, and though my reason screamed in loathing at how he had used my body that was only meant for you to hold and kiss and take, I couldn't do a thing about it—I was conscious yet unconscious, breathing yet dead to the world, seeing yet hallucinating._

_I was not supposed to remember anything._

_That drug usually takes away the memories of anyone who has it in their system. That beast made sure that I recalled nothing of how he threatened me and made me suffer, and of how he planned to use me as pawn to destroy you, so I wouldn't confess the truth._

_He told me what to say, what to do, I merely followed. Like a worthless puppet._

_I filed for divorce, I blamed you, I've said much and I've done horrible things…_

_Then, you rescued me. Just when I was about to break, you came and brought me home._

_But I kept on thinking about it all—how I've wronged you even though it was not of my own conscious doing. I was already pregnant with that beast's child, and I couldn't tell you…I didn't want to hurt you more than I already had…_

_The nightmares never went away, Jaqen. At day, you painted and played some pieces for me, and at night, you kissed me and held me close. Still, there was his face, and my blood, and my shattered body and mind, and how he defiled me night after night after night._

_I hated him. I hated myself more._

_I wanted to stab myself whenever I would look at you. You are beautiful, and good, and selfless._

_After that incident, I knew I would never be worthy of your love anymore. So, I ended my life._

_I ended it, because I would hate to see the look in your eyes when I give birth to that child and you realize he has the face of your enemy. I ended it so he would not be able to use me against you anymore. I ended it, because maybe someone else—someone better—can make you truly happy, and heal you._

_I ended it because I love you._

_My death would hurt for a while, but you are so perfect that I know that someone will come and make you whole again._

_When she comes, paint for her, dance and laugh with her. Build a home with her._

_When she comes, fight for her like how you fought for me._

_Never forget me, Jaqen._

 

_I love you,_

_Nȳhmēria_

_~~~_

 

A solitary tear streamed down Jaqen's face. Where had this letter been the whole time?

Three years—he had spat on his wife's memories because of bitterness, of anguish that he thought would never disappear. He bedded women so he could forget about her betrayal, lived a life of isolation, treated everyone around him with undeserved rancor.

_She had loved you, too…very much, Jaqen._

It was so fucking unconditional that he couldn't fathom, much less swallow it. How does one bring a beloved back from the dead, just to ask for forgiveness?

_And Arya…_

Had Arya Stark not arrived in his life, he would not have learned about this truth. She had read that letter, for sure, and she wanted him to make peace with his bitter past and give him a choice, replot his life if possible, even without her at the center of it…

 _Gods, Devil's Breath?_ That beast had used Scopolamine on Nȳhmēria, probably in heavy, almost fatal doses. It's that drug that had shaped many conspiracy theories—used by some criminal masterminds to force the truth out of captives and spies, used side by side with heinous torture. It's the same drug rumored to have been exploited by the Nazis as interrogation tool and a tool to force people to do their bidding.

And Aurion had  _raped_  her. His wife did  _nothing_  on her own volition, gods above. Aurion made Jaqen believe that the whole sickening relationship was consensual.

Jaqen found himself roaring in utter rage, hurling the glass of Absinthe. It broke into mighty fine pieces against the wall.

_I will kill that fucking beast._

Those around him stared with horrified eyes, probably wondering what had transformed him into a raving lunatic.

Before the bar's security could haul him out of that place, he dropped cash on the counter—to pay for the drink and whatever damage—and strode out.

He dreamed that night. Both women he loved were trapped in the same body.

One was dead. The other was dying.

* * *

"Get up."

Jaqen cursed as he sat up and shielded his eyes. Someone must have a terrible death wish, the artist thought, for him to open the damned curtains at seven o'clock in the morning. And really, Jaqen wanted to strangle the person and watch him die in thorough slowness. He took a good look at the face of the unwanted guest, then groaned and buried his face in the pillows when he realized who it was.

"Get the fuck out of my room, Aegon," Jaqen mumbled, too exhausted to get angry, or to even ask how Aegon managed to get inside his suite. "I'll count to three. If after that you're still here, I'll cock my gun and shoot your brains out."

"Arya's missing, you useless piece of filth—"

Jaqen rolled out of the bed abruptly. "What the hell do you mean Arya's missing?!"

"Her apartment's been trashed as reported by the authorities. Aegeus is already there. We checked surveillance and  _you_ , of all people, were seen with her last night at the metro," Aegon said. Disgust registered in his face upon spotting a bottle of lube lying on the floor, along with countless crumpled tissues. Arya's picture was on the damned bed.

Jaqen rushed to Aegon and held him by the collar. "She ran away from me last night—again. Who the hell took her?!"

"There's something you need to know," Aegon said, breaking away forcefully from Jaqen's hold. Aegon rubbed his temples and exhaled sharply, deep concern apparent in his face.

"I want to know where Arya is!" Jaqen roared. He rushed to the closet, slamming the doors open to look for clothes. He put on a pair of decent pants and slipped on a shirt. "Damn it, you better give me some useful information!"

"And I fucking will," Aegon shot back hotly. "But you have to listen to what I have to say— _calmly_ — if you want to find her."

* * *

He told Jaqen everything.

Aurion came up to him three months ago and struck a bargain—destroy Jaqen H'ghar, in the twisted man's own words, in exchange for Arya Stark's irrevocable commitment.

Aegon only listened so he could glean what Aurion's real motives were.

 _"_ _Hack into Jaqen's Swiss and other off-shore accounts and make necessary untraceable transfers. Cripple him financially and you'll get him to bend. He wouldn't be able to paint a single work and strike negotiations, enter art biddings, have a fucking say in the circle without his money. Plant dirt on him—if you have to kill one of his whores, dump the body in his manse, and make it look like he did it, then very good. Reopen Nȳhmēria's case—that way people will speculate that she didn't commit suicide but was, in fact, murdered. The bloodier, the better._

_And as for Arya Stark…"_

Jaqen's lips were tight as Aegon finished the last of his accounts. The artist looked as if he was about to summon the devil from the chasms and sell his soul just so he could kill them all.

Wrath. Jaqen had most assuredly become wrath incarnate.

His old friend wasn't lying. Aurion was indeed a perverted sadist.

"Devil's breath," Aegon said as they drove to Arya's place. "That's the same substance he used on Nȳhmēria?"

Jaqen loosed a furious exhale. "I will cut that man's flesh into bloody ribbons and feast on his guts."

"We have to find Arya first."

The artist threw him a hellish look. "I wouldn't touch you today because you've made yourself useful by revealing Aurion's ploys. But if something happens to Arya, I swear to the gods, Aegon the Sixth. I will burn you and blow your ashes to the sea."

"I should be the one making such threats," Aegon said in between clenched teeth. "If it wasn't for you, that sick fuck who's obsessed in seeing you break wouldn't even know about Arya."

Aegon wanted to give the artist credit for shutting up about that one fact.

They drove in silence until they reached Arya's apartment.

A living nightmare. That's how the place looked.

 _Gods, above_.

There were traces of struggle all over. Broken lampshade and wares, torn books, scattered papers, a gutted bed with the springs jutting out of the foam in ugly angles, feathers from pillows strewn all over the floor, a shattered modern chandelier…

And blood…

It was all over the place—the tiles, the bedsheets, the wall, the metallic tang of it clinging onto their skin like an unwelcomed scarlet shadow. Aegon felt his skin crawl. It was blood from Arya's body and those traces of crimson were from Arya's fingers when she thrashed against the hold of someone so strong, locking horns with her assaulters and gasping and choking in fits of breath, reaching frantically for something to grab so she wouldn't be hauled away, screaming for help, pleading…

This is far from a ravaged apartment.

This was a fucking crime scene.

And the police made it look even more so with their yellow lines and their transparent bags of evidence with strands of Arya's hair and some chipped nails. Heavens, she did fight back— _hard_.

Aegon realized that he wouldn't wait for his old friend to fulfill the threat. He would burn his damned self and blow his own ashes to the sea.

He and Jaqen. They somehow brought her to this.

_Arya…_

For the first time in his life, Aegon the Sixth Targaryen lost his cool.

He forcefully tugged at his hair, paced across the room, hysteria apparent in his every move. "Fuck…" he cursed, then bit his knuckles. "Fuck, Jaqen…what do we do…what do we do…"

Jaqen on the other hand, wore a mask of calm. The man was hurting and perhaps wanted to die already and take Aurion with him in his choice to self-annihilate, but his artist's eyes were still quick, darting here and there—scanning the details and the minutiae, tracing the causes of the blotches and splashes of red and shattered things, scouring every corner and space, committing them all to memory, then, painting in his mind the grand yet horrifying picture of it all.

"He took his time," Jaqen said in between clenched teeth. "Aurion had a conversation with Arya before he had dragged her out of here. She was already bloodied when he took her, and the trashing came afterwards. To rid the whole apartment of evidence or to create an exhibit to torture the fucking hell out of us—or both—I can only guess."

"Seems you're right," the district attorney—Aegeus replied, walking towards them with the chief agent in tow. "We've managed to recover Arya's phone. Good girl, she dropped it on purpose. I'm practically risking confidentiality here by showing you unprocessed evidence, but maybe we could pick up something from it."

The CS technical analyst accessed the phone's contents.

The last activity was a voice recording.

"Eleven seconds," the tech said.

"Play it," Jaqen ordered. The tech looked at the lawyer and chief agent for confirmation. Both nodded their assent.

It was eleven seconds of hell for both men.

Arya was whimpering in pain in the background…

A sharp, high-pitched, tormented scream.

"Gods, Jaqen…" Aegon whispered in agony, rushing to the wall of hardwood and slamming his fist against it. He shuddered with dread, unable to listen or think or breathe…

She sounded as if her limbs were being ripped apart from her body and her bones were being twisted in unthinkable angles and her flesh was being burned. The pain felt raw, and  _real_.

It sounded like hellish brutality—like her body was being broken and shredded in thoroughness, like her guts and brains were being yanked out of her system by demonic hands…

It sounded like slow death.

Aurion's voice…

 _'_ _Shush, sweetheart…don't cry…I'll take you to the Gates of Paradise. We'll play Adam and Eve…and no serpent or God could steal you away from me…like a goddess, you will be born out of my love…'_

The tech analyst began encoding the contents of the recording word per word, sound per torturous sound.

Then, it stopped. Only their breathing reverberated in the walls of that apartment.

"What have you gathered?" Aegeus queried. "That bastard could have brought Arya anywhere."

Aegon's now blood-shot eyes turned towards Jaqen, silently imploring for answers.

"Not anywhere," Jaqen said. " _[Gates of Paradise](https://imgsafe.org/image/540f447e17)_. It's a sculpted work on a baptistry's threshold—Ghiberti's brainchild."

"Which place are we looking at?" the chief inspector asked.

Jaqen scanned every person in that room, his face that of Death and a reckoning. "Florence."

* * *

She had lost track of time.

Arya could feel blood from her broken bones seeping through her skin, trickling onto the floor. Tears and sweat mingled with it. She was gagged, blindfolded, shackled.

 _Ruined_.

She couldn't scream—not that she was saving her strength for an impossible escape. She was dead to the bones that even breathing sent a million lances of pain in the entirety of her. Arya thought if maybe she was drifting in and out of living and dying. It certainly felt like it.

Searing sensations pulsed around her still fresh wounds. Her quivering body ordered her to give up, its screams jarring and brutal and mocking. She gasped for air, and tasted only the flowing blood from inside her mouth. Pain's savage, brutal roars cut through every inch of her flesh and every marrow of her bone.

Perhaps it had been days, or weeks, or months. She fell in and out of dreams, most of the time unaware of where the line was that separated what is real from what is not. Shivers and spasms racked her body, waking her every midnight. And the chill were like sharp talons against her already shattered frame.

She felt like surrendering, if not for the lovely face of the man sojourning in her dreams every time she would pray for a release.

_Jaqen._

Did Aurion get his beastly claws on him, too? Is he still alive, or did he suffer a fate worse than what she is suffering now?

_Fear cuts deeper than swords._

_The man who fears losing has already lost._

She is Arya Stark. She would not be afraid.

A plan—she needed a brilliant plan so she could emancipate herself from this. And when she does escape, she will take her own sweet time draining the filthy blood out of Aurion's shredded body.

Perhaps, the beast still has some use for her. She's still fed by Aurion's dogs thrice a day, the only moments when they would remove her gag and force spoonfuls into her mouth.  _Stupid, stupid._ She should have started counting the intervals between meals to at least get some sense of time, instead of screaming at and cursing the guards the whole damned while as they were brutishly feeding her like a chained animal.

Well then, she will start tracking time tomorrow.

Arya couldn't see, but her hands bound from the back could feel the irregular shape and projection of that massive object behind her.  _Pillars._ The floor was smooth and cool, a bit shiny if she could trust what little light was bouncing against her dark blindfold.  _Marble._ And the footsteps of Aurion's demons whenever they would draw nigh would echo in the vastness of that place, and they would whisper to each other, 'Careful with the  _belle pietre,_ or that  _artista pazzo_  would slit our throats…' Stone— _sculptures._

A museum, somewhere in Italy.

That fucking beast had attacked her, drugged her, shackled her, and had flown all the way here.

_And Jaqen…_

She couldn't let him fall prey into Aurion's trap. The artist was no fool—surely he knew that she was made a pawn only so his nemesis could get to his actual target.

Her restless pulse, her heartbeats mirrored the steady seconds of the clock.

 _Footsteps._ In her mind she replayed those words that have allowed her to preserve herself over the years of running and hiding and evading the hunt— _fierce as a wolverine, quiet as a shadow, calm as still water_.

_Calm, calm, calm—_

Those footsteps stopped right in front of her. He thrice-clicked his tongue.

"My sweet, sweet Arya…"

That purr sounded deprived and malicious. She felt her stomach turn.

She sensed him kneeling in front of her, removing her gag. The blindfold stayed.

 _Fingertips._ Tracing, outlining, sketching out lazy patterns on her skin. Devilish touch, a prelude to a sickening encounter, and they were all over her—crawling across the tip of her nose and the side of her lips, traveling like hideous cold claws across the line of her jaw and her neck…

A finger traced the roundness of her left bosom.

She gritted her teeth and fought the urge to roar and flail about. Like sea's tempest she was raging, and she wanted to bathe herself in this man's blood, and revel in her kill, bask in the intoxicating scent of his death.

"Mark my words. I will slaughter you."

A disparaging chuckle came in response, a taunting whistle. "Dear gods…" he again purred sensually, as he carried on tracing various parts of her. His index finger was now on the soft of her thigh, caressing her skin north and south, as if teasing that part between her legs. "Chained and broken, and yet as wild as ever. A howling wolf, a storm…"

"Fuck you."

Pain lanced across her arm as Aurion grabbed it and pulled her towards himself. Her sore body crashed against his in a most painful impact.

He was smelling her hair, inhaling every bit of essence in heavy respirations. His sultry, disgusting breath now slithered across the skin of her neck as the man smelled her there, too. Arya felt his lips hovering just above her shoulder…

Then, he began kissing her there, licking, his canines biting the fleshiest part of it gently, lustfully.

Arya screamed her ire, and surrendered to her own demoniac resistance.

"Oh, sweetheart…" he groaned as he held her legs down, stroking her calves like one depraved. "Don't torment yourself unnecessarily. I'm not going to hurt you..." He placed his mouth against Arya's ears. "On the contrary, I will  _love_  you in a way no one, not even Jaqen H'ghar, has loved you before."

In helpless wrath she screamed and swore and heard the echoes of her own shrieks bouncing off the walls of that expanse where monuments lay. Perhaps, the subjects of paintings have cowered and the dead statues have crumbled at her sounds of fury.

"You fucking beast! Damn you!"

But Aurion kept on shushing her, dismissing completely her rage and riot. His cruel laughter was madness and obsession made flesh, as if nothing mattered at that moment but the persistence of his lust, and those creative, artistic ways he could use to gratify his aching self.

"Beautiful…" he growled in her ears, as he cupped and squeezed her right breast. "We'll make a lovely pair—you and I. The beast and the whore.  _'Seven heads and ten horns—with these I shall pleasure thee, great harlot, and burn thy flesh with the fire of my loins…'_  Ah, to paint such art!"

Arya struggled against his grip as she roared and cursed. And in every distasteful stroke and kiss and whisper, she loathed him, loathed herself.

Power and lust and a hint of semen, his scent was overwhelming.

Arya had awakened his carnalities perhaps, because what rubbed against her leg was his raging erection beneath the fabric of his trousers.  _'Such beauty is sin—it's inviting despoilment…'_ she heard the beast whisper, and she wanted to sleep and forget, or better yet die and fall into hell's abyss and be obliterated by the sheer force of its punishing flames. She was slowly being defiled by him, turned unchaste—he was forcing his ownership of this body… _this_  body of hers created only for  _Jaqen_ …

Even without the beast ripping her clothes off and smothering her writhing body with his mouth, she still could feel him  _inside_  her skin.

_Rape. He would rape me._

And after this, she was sure she would not be able to think and see and feel and taste the same.

Those whispers of vulgarity—details upon details of what lecherous things he planned to do to her mouth and breasts and cunt, spoiled art in his language straight from the demon's creative tongue—invaded the spaces of her thoughts like one relentless incubus.

 _Gods,_ was he raping her mind, too?

She opened her mouth and once more tried to scream, but felt Aurion's tongue filling the hole, exploring, tasting.

Then, a wave of lethargy swept through her, draining her of dire strength, of will.

_Fierce as a wolverine quiet as a shadow calm as—_

Arya Stark suddenly stopped resisting.

It might have been the wind…or a phantom…but she felt his hands…his many, many hands… touching… stroking… squeezing…

…and his lips was above…under…inside…all over her…

_Forgive me, Jaqen._

May she die. May she not wake up.

* * *

Jaqen still stood in front of the  _Battistero di San Giovanni._

It was evening, yet the bronze of Gates of Paradise adorning the baptistry's giant doors gleamed like it was toying with invisible light. The carved figures of Adam and Eve, Jacob and Esau and David and Goliath across the panels of that art seemed to breathe and speak.

A living vault of history—this city.

The hairs on his arms rose in both fury and dread at where Arya might truly be, and what hell she might be enduring right at that moment.

It's been two days.

They were acting based on illogical presumptions and plain instinct, the chief inspector had said. Jaqen had walked away even before the man could finish his damned lecture on waiting for evidence to be processed before taking off and scouring the streets of Italy.

"Do you have a wife?" Jaqen had asked the inspector prior to leaving.

"I do," the man had replied.

"Do you love her?"

"Why, of course!"

Jaqen fought against all urges to offend the inspector by pointing a finger at his face. "Then, you must understand why I have to get to Arya Stark at the soonest possible time."

He hadn't slept, hadn't eaten much either. After that grueling interrogation and an almost nasty wrangle with the chief inspector, he had flown straight to Florence with Aegon the Sixth, disregarding protocol ordering them to stand by until Italian authorities have been notified about the matter.

 _Nothing._ The overseer of the baptistry, the priests, do not recall ever seeing a man and a woman matching Aurion and Arya's descriptions. Their inquiry lasted for about a full hour and the priests were to their credit, obliging, but Jaqen and Aegon both gathered nothing of consequence from them.

He stared at the sculpture and replayed it over and over—Aurion's words on record.

 _'_ _I'll take you to the Gates of Paradise. We'll play Adam and Eve…and no serpent or God could steal you away from me…like a goddess, you will be born out of my love…'_

"Where are you, Arya Stark?"

As if it wasn't enough, he had received a call from Izembaro that his manse in Cannes has been burned to the ground by an unknown arsonist. The manservant, along with four others, narrowly escaped when the fire happened in the dead of night.

And those paintings of his lovely wife in the manse's cellar—Nȳhmēria's face and smiles and colors—all those were stolen from him by the flames, too.

Those were his only memories of her.

He had locked those remembrances of her in that dark, desolate cave beneath his house that was also hers, all the while thinking that she had chosen that beast of an enemy over her own husband. She wasn't given a choice at all, as he had recently realized. His beloved wife was forced to a fate worse than hell by that man.

Aurion had taken her away, and he had burned traces of her just so he could inflict greater devastation upon Jaqen.

He had made a promise to her after contemplating on her last letter.

_Fight for her as you have fought for me._

He placed a call on Bellegere Otherys right after receiving the news about his manse-in-ashes.

"Is there any other place where Aurion might have taken Arya?" Aegon asked as they walked down the  _Strade di Firenze._ "Maybe that damned sculpture is in some other church's door."

"Let me think," Jaqen snapped at him, ignoring a couple of women at the sidewalk who had started trailing after them, giggling like vixens behind.

"A large area, most probably," Aegon offered. "A place he has undeniable access to, somewhere abandoned…"

"That's not Aurion," Jaqen replied. "Everything he does, even the most twisted things, has to have some artistic license to it. He wants the grand things, he wants damned  _recognition_."

" _Ciao, ragazzi_ ," one of the women called to them. " _Una notte di divertimento_?"

_Hello, boys. Want a night of fun?_

Aegon looked at them over his shoulder and replied promptly. " _No, grazie_."

"Ooooh,  _dai_!  _Gratis per la prima ora,_ " the other woman insisted. " _Cazzo, o cazzo…l'uomo con i capelli rossi sembra delizioso!_ "

_Free for the first hour. Fuck, oh, fuck…the redhead looks tasty as hell!_

Jaqen paused with his steps, then turned to face the women. His smoldering eyes had them backing a couple of steps, their faces paling.

" _Vai a casa, ragazze,_ " the artist growled. " _Si sono bestie ovunque_."

_Go home, girls. There are beasts everywhere._

The two women walked hastily to the other side of the street, their stilettos clacking on the pavement.

Aegon shook his head. "Must you really go all brutish on them?"

Jaqen continued walking. "Forgive me if there's only one woman in this damned world who can arouse me, Aegon the Sixth."

Aegon ignored him. " _Like a goddess, you shall be born out of my love,_ " he quoted the words on the audio. "Damn it, Jaqen. I hope that sick bastard doesn't do anything—"

The artist stopped.

"What's wrong?" Aegon asked.

Jaqen mouthed out those words over and over, his eyes locked on his old friend's face. A realization.

"Shit."

"Shit what?!"

" _[The Birth of Venus](https://imgsafe.org/image/54103c7421)_ —Botticelli," Jaqen exhaled as he ran his fingers through his hair. "That fucking monster."

A fully-grown goddess emerging from a scallop, stark naked, her body's angles flowing on canvas like water. Aurion needed a damned echo, desired to dance in the same tune as he did three years back.

He wants Arya. And he's going to take her forcefully.

There's only one place in the whole world where that piece could be.

"I know where to find them."

Aegon only nodded, then dashed after Jaqen as the artist broke into a run.

* * *

She had realized that it wasn't the wind at all, or a ghost, or a nightmare. It was real.

And it was horrifying fascination which the man possessed for her, a haunting calling-forth of his feelings of infatuation and lust. Arya Stark was conscious yet unconscious, the experience—a dream image and a tangible one, and the twisted artist was beast yet human.

_Let me go let me go let me go…_

She wanted to walk or run or fly or swim or crawl—wanted to do anything just to get away. Her forceful screams and struggles from earlier had become tender, weak.

_Let me go…_

His lips were still against hers, kissing and sucking, and she couldn't bear it— _couldn't_ —so she bit him hard and tasted blood that pooled in his mouth, spat it out on the floor, smirked though faintly.

He roared and cursed. The next thing she knew was the sting as his palm landed solidly on her cheek, the blast of agony all over her body as he kicked and struck her. Tightly, he gripped her head and slammed it against the pillar, over and over, and she was too weak to scream, to even be aware that there was still breath left in her.

Then, a sting on her left forearm. A sharp object, she was guessing, though with her clouded mind she couldn't be sure. Was it a drug? An implant of sorts?

She would die here…she would die…

 _"_ _Aurion."_

That woman's voice called the beast by his name. It was sudden, as if the presence was god-sent. A familiar voice, a voice from the gala.

 _"_ _You leave me in your damned bed unsatisfied, so you could run to your chained pet and force love out of her?"_  the woman teased, then let out a flirty laugh.  _"Oh, Aurion. Far from manly, my love."_

Arya sensed the man standing up. "Unsatisfied?"

The woman ignored the slight ire in that tone. _"Come here, love. Come here, right now…"_

Arya held her breath, hearing, sensing. She listened to their lewd conversation, the sounds of kissing and moaning, and silently thanked the gods that Aurion had suddenly lost interest in her.

Their unhurried footfalls echoed across the hall, along with their murmurs. The woman's cackle sounded distant. They're leaving.

She shuddered as she let out an audible, pained exhale. Far behind her is a howl like a hellhound's, soft and faint yet bloodcurdling.

"Jaqen…"

She let the tears fall, let herself fall into a deep sleep filled with dread.

* * *

_Wake up…_

That same voice. The woman's voice.

Her eyelashes fluttered against the fabric of her blindfold. Sweat and tears bathed her face. Her lips were parched, her body and will close to full submission. A sob broke from her throat but she was quick to calm herself.

Then, a quick tug on the material covering her eyes. Arya hissed at the hazy light that flooded her vision, at the pain that consumed every bit of her as she attempted the slightest of movements. She smelled the metallic tang of blood— _her_  blood—drowning that of dust and the scent of antiquity in that place.

When her eyes have adjusted, she saw the outline of the woman's face.

"Bellegere…"

The woman shushed her, then began untying the thick ropes that bound her hands and feet. "Run. Run as fast as you can. Get help. I will buy you time…"

"How…"

"Jaqen sent me to—"

_Bang!_

Arya screamed as blood and brain and flesh bespattered her face.

 _Fuck, fuck…_ Bellegere's body collapsed on the floor, the remnants of her gray matter still all over her, the rest of it oozing in horrifying patterns across the marble. The woman was shot point-blank on the head, and the bullet left absolutely nothing intact within her broken skull. Arya's eyes darted to the source of the shot.

Aurion's lip curled up in a twisted sneer, as he loosed four more bullets on Bellegere's corpse, never once taking his stare away from Arya's face.

"Run, Arya," Aurion purred, aiming the gun at her. He smiled, the pretentious sweetness of it like a hissing snake's. "Five seconds before I hunt you down like vermin."

_One chance._

Instinct had her shooting up to her feet. She was already numb and broken, yet she had to do it.

_Run, run, run!_

Three bullets found their way to the floor, chasing her already moving feet. She ran faster, ignoring the diabolic sounds of his laughter.

It was as if an iron hand held her by the neck. She swallowed a pathetic sob. Despair hit her like a shackle around her ankle. But she kept moving…moving…

_Swift as a deer, strong as a bear, quick as a snake._

_Calm, calm._

More bullets. They blew holes on the pillars and the walls, narrowly missing the paintings. The beast was feeding on her fears, toying with her desperation.

She dashed past vivid colors and faces and landscapes and abstractions, swerving, heart pumping wildly, her breathing coming in small spurts. Her eyes moved here and there, looking for a place to hide.

_Jaqen…where are you?_

And she ignored the taunting voice, too, that told her Jaqen was dead.

She felt it—felt the walls closing in around her, the ceiling pressing down, surrender gnawing at her heart. Her left arm hurt like hell.

But she kept running.

Even though she couldn't see in the dark, and didn't know where she was going, or who might be waiting for her once strength failed her and she had to stop.

She hid at the back of a large Corinthian pillar, crouched low. Left and right, she surveyed her environs, wary of her surroundings, of the beast that would pounce on her at any time.

Nothing.

Except for the beast's voice that were mimicked by the echoes. And in the fleeting sound of that voice was her name, spoken in an eerie sing-song.

 _"_ _Aryaaaaa…."_

The way he called to her—like a gothic gargoyle enticing its prey—chilled her from spine to sole.

 _"_ _Aryaaaaa…."_

She crouched lower, crawled towards the other side of the column and rose warily. Arya took a quick glance behind as she rushed again to hell-knows-where. Aurion wasn't there anymore.

Until she slammed hard against a solid body.

She collapsed on the floor, and felt her heart stop upon seeing a figure towering over her.

* * *

He lifted her from the floor, and she couldn't do a thing but throw herself in his arms, bury her face in the crook of his neck and smell him, touch and hold him. Maybe she had not truly woken up and was still dreaming and wishing, maybe this was just an impossible vagary, a trick springing from her already insane mind.

"Jaqen…"

She gripped his sleeves tightly, then coiled her arms around his neck as she bit her lip and wept in silence. He pulled her close and crushed her in one unbending embrace. He took a sharp intake of breath as he smelled and kissed her hair, as if he too, cannot quite believe that they had found each other again.

 _He's here_. Relief crawled through her veins, infusing her with the warmth of comfort, solace. His breathing alone stilled her petrified soul. She was safe…

And when he spoke…oh, he spoke as if he was battling the fears on her behalf, as if he had already defeated all monsters and uncertainties and perils.

"I'll get you out of here, Arya."

His words were definite, delivered with protective, male conviction.

"I'm sorry…I'm so sorry, Jaqen…" she stammered in between choked sobs.

"Don't be, sweetheart. It's all my fault."

"It's mine…"

"Be quiet."

Jaqen dragged her behind the statue of [Laocoon](https://imgsafe.org/image/540e834b1e), the complex twists, bends, and forms shielding them from sight, with the Ionic pillar in front acting as shield. They're not going to take any chances—Aurion had succumbed to feral madness for him to be shooting inside a gallery with billions of euros worth of art.

He inclined his head to the side, listening. Slowly, he pulled out his forty-five and unlocked it through the safety notch. Jaqen threw her a quick glance—just a passing one, but the dread in Arya's bones disappeared as she read the promise of protection in his eyes.

Still,  _she_  was the one wronged by Aurion. "He's mine to kill, Jaqen."

The artist's lip tipped up as he surveyed the gallery's expanse. "Pull out my spare Ruger. Right pocket."

She did, then smiled broadly despite herself as she balanced the gun in her hand. It's a gun for a woman. For  _her_.

"Don't miss," Jaqen said, still scanning the area.

"Not for one bit."

She held the gun steady as they stood back to back, alert for any signs of the enemy. Their eyes scoured every space and corner of the area, taking in everything, missing nothing.

"Ah, Jaqen H'ghar— _il mio adorato rivale_."

The strange sing-song was like words of death hurled into darkness. Aurion was already walking towards them from the left, his silhouette appearing and disappearing in what small fractions and shafts of light were present. They both aimed at him, and he, at them.

Jaqen threw him an arrogant smirk. "You're just a second-rate to be named as my rival, Archestrad."

The man responded with a rich chuckle. "Your woman didn't think so when I was licking and stroking her all over. I could have sworn she was begging for me so desperately even when her slutty mouth was gagged."

"Fuck you," Arya raved. "I'm going to turn your brain into mush, like what you did to Bellegere."

Another scornful laugh. "Sentimental much?"

"Every damned piece in this gallery is faked," Jaqen said. "I've been in the Uffizi thousands of times in the past. You smuggled the original ones out of here. You're not going to fool anyone. The authorities are after you now and you're going to pay big time."

"This is why you have to be dispatched, you see. This is why I've been spending the better part of my life destroying you," Aurion said. And how he managed to keep his calm, Arya could only guess. "You're a pest to my plans."

"I normally wouldn't care about whatever you want to do with your life," Jaqen shot back, baring his teeth. "But you dragged Arya into this and you raped my wife that she had to end her own life, you fucking bastard. Killing you a thousand times wouldn't suffice as a retribution."

Aurion only shook his head, chuckling. "Still yapping. I'm tired of this." He raised his other hand which was then gripping what appeared to be a handheld control. "Kick your guns over here."

Jaqen glanced quickly at Arya, as if weighing the enemy's maneuvers. He turned his attention back to Aurion, his eyes fixed on the handheld device. "You're outnumbered. You're the one who should be giving up that pea-shooter of yours."

A dreadful laughter, one that came from the ravines of hell itself. "A slide of my finger on the button,  _a click_ ," Aurion drawled, examining the device with mock fascination. He looked up at Jaqen again, winked. "And your beloved Arya Stark will be nothing but scattered art of flesh, blood, and brains on the marble. This hallowed gallery will be burnished with her entrails, would reek of the bitter and vile perfume of her pretty corpse—or what would be left of it."

Arya's heart stopped. Slowly, she lifted her left arm, the sting from what Aurion had embedded in her skin earlier still lingering.

An implant—explosive.

The beast had injected a bomb inside her body. It was a counterplot well thought out and well done—an artist's finale.

A click, and she will be obliterated right before Jaqen's eyes.

She felt the world collapsing on her. She had brought this upon herself, upon the man she loves. And now, he would be forced to face another loss.

Arya let her hand fall to her side, the gun hanging in her loose grip, useless. They both slid their guns across the floor towards the man.

But Jaqen would not so easily give up.

Slowly, he walked towards Aurion, both hands raised. "What do you want?" Jaqen asked, his voice on the verge of breaking. Still, he held his ground. Arya watched him, as he walked right into the beast's trap. "I'll give you what you want, Archestrad. Just…not Arya.  _Please_ , not Arya…"

Aurion clicked his tongue, donning a fake face of one who was deeply moved. He toyed with the device, rubbing his thumb across the deadly button. "Such noble words. Bargaining for a beloved. Ah, Jaqen. The ideal you."

"Please…"

"Kneel. There."

Aurion pointed at a sculpture close to the right wing. [Giambologna's work](https://imgsafe.org/image/540a34b09d)—two men, one woman. The woman was being violated by her abductor, and the other man—the woman's beloved, was on the ground, scorned and defeated.

Arya couldn't do anything but curl her hands into fists as her eyes followed Jaqen, kneeling in front of the stonework, both hands at the back of his head.

"Very fitting, yes?" Aurion purred, pointing at each element of the sculpted masterpiece. "You, me, and Arya Stark."

"Fuck you," Jaqen spat.

"Be nice," Aurion replied with a saccharine tone. "I might cringe with your cursing and  _accidentally_  blow up Arya Stark into bloody smithereens." When neither of them breathed another word at the threat, Aurion continued. "The deal—you'll take her place. Only death may pay for life, Jaqen H'ghar. I'll shoot your brains out, and Arya Stark lives. And since it's a life debt she would owe me for sparing her and killing you instead, I would have the right to everything she has—the last will you recently signed, naming her as possessor of all your assets, her body, her life,  _everything_."

Jaqen roared his fury.

"I will kill you," Arya said through gritted teeth. "Count seconds and I'll find a way to scatter your guts on the ground."

"Shush, goddess," Aurion purred, one hand still aiming the gun at Jaqen and the other, gripping the device. "What we'll both find is a way to tame that wild tongue of yours.  _Hard_  love should do it."

Jaqen was cursing madly.

Despite that anger, he would do it. He would die painfully, if that meant she could survive this whole wretched circumstance.

But she couldn't just let him bargain for her sake and take the fall. Nȳhmēria was right about him. Yes, this  _is_  Jaqen—he is sacrifice and selflessness. Through and through. He doesn't change, he doesn't bend. And this is how he loves—all or none at all.

He deserved to walk away from this.

A fool's step.

"We would keep our mouths shut about you faking art," Arya finally said. "Let Jaqen go, and…take me instead. He wouldn't bother you— _us_ , I can guarantee this."

Jaqen appeared as if his soul was being ripped from his body. "Arya…" he called softly, and in his eyes was a silent plea for her not to do this thing.

She knew that Nȳhmēria had done it before for his sake. His wife chose a life of hell so Jaqen could be pulled out of the flames of it.

Arya just closed her eyes and allowed the pain to settle deep, so she could numb it afterwards.

It's over.

"No."

Their heads both whipped at Aurion, who was shaking his head. "No, no," the man repeated. "You don't make demands, sweet pet." With those words, he clicked the gun's safety and aimed it again at Jaqen. "He dies."

* * *

His impending death was the least of his concerns. All that rushed in his mind were ways on how to get Arya out of there, buy her time to escape, at least.

Jaqen was aware that he had walked into a trap. When he crossed the thresholds of the Uffizi, he knew he would never walk away from it alive. Maybe he deserved it, for not realizing what had hounded his wife before her death. Maybe, Arya Stark would be better off without him.

He could love her, yes. Give her everything. Do the impossible.

But it would never be enough. Not if there was Aurion, who was hell-bent to hunt them for eternity. It has to end. He and Aurion— a chess game with fatal moves, a duel to the grave.

"Kill me now, and leave her out of this."

"Oh, but I can't do the latter," Aurion replied. "I want her, Jaqen. Possibly more than I've ever wanted your now dead wife. And you know how my temper goes when I don't get what I want."

"You sick fuck," Jaqen growled.

"I'll let Arya be the judge of that when…we finally have the chance to be alone—in my bed, naked, with me inside her, grunting and pushing deep…"

Before Jaqen could utter another curse, Aurion had already pressed the gun's cold muzzle against Jaqen's forehead. Aurion's finger was on the trigger, tensing, eager for the gore and the kill.

Jaqen let his eyes settle on Arya's face now bathed with tears and blood. In between Arya's pleas to Aurion, a thousand thoughts and things exploded in his head—but most of those, if not all, were about her…and her only.

Aegon would know what to do when all this is over. If there was any other person in the world whom Jaqen would trust to love and cherish Arya Stark, it would be his old friend.

Taking risks, letting go of everything and nothing, facing disillusionment, bliss, kisses and fights. All of these had been them. Time with her was short, yet time with her was the only thing that made sense.

Less than a split-second. Once Aurion pulls the trigger, Arya could run.

"If you see Nȳhmēria in hell," Aurion purred, smirking sardonically. "Tell her I missed fucking her."

He only closed his eyes, welcomed it.

The gun's clear shot resounded in that gallery.

Jaqen could have sworn he heard the sculptures and painting scream at his end.

* * *

Arya's anguished screams could tear the realms of any world, could efface the line dividing art from reality.

_Jaqen!_

She knew she should run. Jaqen had stolen time only by directing Aurion's attention to himself so she could escape. But her heart is its own self, it doesn't listen to the calls of her mind, and so she found herself rushing towards him, wanting to save what could still be saved.

Only to realize that Jaqen and Aurion were wrestling each other on the ground. Aurion's hands were bloody, so was Jaqen right shoulder which might have taken the hit.

Someone had shot Aurion's hand, causing the bullet meant for Jaqen's head to go astray.

Now, the gun and handheld device lay on the ground.

"Jaqen!" Arya shrieked, picking up her own Ruger from the floor and with unsteady hands, aimed it at Aurion.

"Arya, no!"

Aegon rushed to her and leaped, snatching the gun away from her hand. They both fell with a heavy thud on the marble, sending the Laocoon collapsing and shattering on the floor. "You might shoot Jaqen!"

"Aurion would kill him if I don't pull the trigger, Aegon!"

"I'll get the implant out of you before we make any rash decisions," Aegon replied, taking out a dagger. "I would have to slice your skin open…"

"Do it," Arya breathed, her eyes still on the two men grappling and dealing each other deadly blows. "Fast, Aegon, fast! Do it!"

Arya bellowed in agony as Aegon split open her flesh and carefully removed the implant. He threw it on the far corner and made a move to retrieve the handheld control.

He stopped dead.

A series of gunshots echoed throughout the gallery hall. Artworks both fake and authentic were destroyed by the spray of bullets, pulverized to fragments. Jaqen had managed to retrieve his gun and was now aiming it at Aurion.

"Give up, you beast," Jaqen snarled in between heavy breaths, his fingers trigger-ready.

Aurion, who now lay bloodied in the floor, smirked. "I don't think so." He held up his hand that was again gripping the device. "The explosive is exposed somewhere. Since you've removed the implant from Arya Stark's flesh, no shell would carry the full force of the blast."

Arya's eyes widened, her screams were choked back in her throat as Aurion pushed the button and the explosive's signal light flickered on and off in rapid successions.

"Arya! Aegon! Run!" Jaqen bellowed. "Leave now!"

The next thing Arya Stark knew was Aegon carrying her, his body smashing into the glass windows as he leaped out of that gallery with her in his arms.

They rolled on the street, their head and limbs hitting the rough road laden with sharp debris and shards of glass. Blood flowed, groans of pain resounded in the night.

Then, Aegon's body was on top of hers, shielding her from whatever cataclysmic thing was to happen at any moment.

A thundering drumfire, a hellish boom sliced through the silence of midnight, and with it came a tempest of stones and steel and shattered things. Aegon held her tighter, even as those traces and fragments of wreckage and doom were collapsing on his body like rain of death.

And there was nothing that Arya Stark could do but weep as exhaustion and pain stole her consciousness.

The Uffizi was devoured wholly by the explosion. Everything was no doubt ravaged, obliterated into smoke and ruins.

All…all are now mere vestiges, remnants of ash and death.

_Jaqen…_

* * *

_'_ _Thirty-year old male, major trauma from an explosion at the Piazzale degli Uffizi, slightly responsive, pulse rate decreasing…'_

 _'_ _Major hits on internals?'_

 _'_ _Spleen, liver…heart, close to the main arteries. It's not looking good...'_

 _'_ _Clear the trauma rooms. Get the blood banks here, morphine and lidocaine. I need the patient wheeled to the O.R., steady oxygen, gather those at the triage…'_

His lids were opening and closing, his entirety was both tormented and benumbed.

Death was waiting for him, with its immortal claws and sickle and a hooded face.

_Arya…_

Did Aegon get her out? Was she safe? How is she faring now after that unspeakable encounter?

_Where is she?_

He could sense nothing but his own fleeting movement as he was being wheeled across the hospital's hall. He swam in and out of seas and tunnels of dreams and visions, the explosion still ringing in his ears, wracking his already wrecked body and will.

White light swept over his unseeing eyes, electronic sounds of machines flooded his hearing senses, the tension and calm commotion amongst those attending to him overwhelmed his fading sensorium.

Jaqen felt his body move in uncontrolled paroxysm. His lungs were barely able to breathe in air, barely able to aid him so he could survive this.

" _Ar…ya…_ "

"He's having seizures," he heard one of them said. "This is bad."

A reply. "Shots, we need him calm."

Clangor…sounds of metal tools…hasty movements and calls…commands…fluctuating sounds of an electronic device signaling that he was still alive…

His body stopped convulsing.

 

_Thirty beats per minute…twenty…Doc?_

_Get the defib. Start at 200._

_Hold on, buddy…hold on…don't die on us…_

 

Jaqen gasped as a jolt of electricity surged through every filament of him. He sensed his heart beating faster.

And felt his body reacting violently, then breaking down…

 

_And clear!_

_No response…_

_Recharge, let's go again. Set the shock at 300._

_Heart rate—zero. Pulse—zero._

_Push it up to 360. Clear!_

_None, Doc. We're losing him…_

 

Then…

There was only the seemingly infinite beeping sound.

And Arya's lovely face before everything went blank.


End file.
